


Further into Darkness

by Rynfinity



Series: The Darkness Between [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:17:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 54
Words: 58,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based during/after Thor: The Dark World.  Was one-shots; oops, is sort of a story.  :)</p><p>Most characters aren't mine.  Mostly teen for language/mild violence; exceptions marked in the notes.  Un-beta'd:  Comments and corrections always welcome.<br/> <br/><i>If you prefer chronological order, these go:</i><br/>* prologue *<br/>27. Brute 22. Mercy 4. Before<br/>* start of movie *<br/>5. Retrospective 8. Exchange 2. Relief 31. Decency 13. Nothing 18. Conflict 33. Forgive 16. Dreams 34. Battle 20. Pastimes 35. Choices 39. Passage 43. Council 23. Care 6. Mission 7. Onward 36. Science 10. Mortal 1. Freedom 25. Sorry 11. Sand<br/>* end of movie *<br/>12. Loss 21. Learning 46. Repair 49. Outreach 53. Near 14. Mimicry 17. Catch 26. Home 3. Solitary 9. Sight 15. Played 19. Wait 24. Free-fall 28. Wonder 29. Resemblance (Only, ch1 in Banish the Light) 32. Custody 30. Unrest 37. Duties 38. Worries 40. Plans 41. Blue 42. Respite 44. Cold 45. Amnesia 47. Healing 48. Reward part I (Reward part II, ch2 in Banish the Light) 50. Forward 51. Tale 52. Confess 54. One</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> What Loki may have been thinking on the way to Svartalfheim... and when he arrives.

At first, Loki is so happy to be _free_ \- to be outside again, sunlight warming his face and wind whipping his dirty, tangled mop of hair into his eyes - that he can almost forget the _reality_ of it all: His freedom, like so much in his life these days, is just an illusion. He is free, if one can even call it that, to take them both to a battle that will either end his life or send him back to that wretched dungeon cell.

The cell where he has just enough command of his magic to sustain a pretty glamour’d veneer - _Look, the fallen prince reads quietly amongst his finery_ \- over ugly reality: Since _she_ died, he spends his days crying and screaming, lashing out in fury, until he collapses in a blood heap against the unforgiving wall. On the unforgiving floor.

It's hard to know which outcome is the worse of the two.

But all that unpleasantness is easy to tuck away just now, out in the joyous light of an Asgard day. He and Thor bicker and tease and smile and joke and - but for the pinched expression on Thor's face, the cuffs on his own wrists, and the sickly mortal woman resting in the bow - it's almost like it was _before everything went bad._

Before Jotunheim. Before Thor was cast out. Before the Bifrost and the Void and the Chitauri and New York.

Before Thor came to hate Loki in exactly the way Loki'd thought he most wanted... only to find, when the ugly words spilled from Thor's mouth, that he very much didn't want it after all.

It it weren't for Thor's mistrust, his own chains, and the girl, this could be one of their countless adventures. A story to tell over too many sloshed pints of ale later, with Thor's friends slapping backs and clapping shoulders and-

-and doing everything in their power to be sure Loki knew he was unwelcome among them.

Right.

Well, _that_ hasn't changed.

Loki forces his mind back to the task at hand. He has to guide them safely along one of Yggdrasil's lesser-known branches and onto Svartalfheim before they're caught (and _not_ killed; surely the Allfather would never strike down his golden son? No, that path leads back to the dungeon for certain), so they can execute Thor's ridiculous plan and... rid the mortal of the Aether? Rid themselves of the mortal, more likely, and that only shortly before they're all rid of their lives.

So be it. For now he is free, flying and winning and as close to _happy_ as he's been in a very long time.

The rock looms large in front of them and Thor's rising panic - "Are you crazy?!" - makes Loki smile. He's done this countless times, although never in a fighting ship. And never with his magic bound. Hmm.

But before he can really surrender to doubt they're at the branching and _through_ , sparks flying as they scrape along. There really isn't even time to scream before - "ta da!" - they're popping out into a leaden Svartalfheim afternoon.

~

"Cover Jane. Once free of the Aether, she will be defenseless. I am serious, Loki," Thor adds as Loki attempts to interject, "stay out of this. I can look after myself. I need you to protect Jane."

~

Agreeing seemed harmless enough at the time - Thor _does_ normally look after himself admirably, after all - but now Loki's watching his not-brother taking an impressive beating and he has to put a stop to it. He _has_ to.

Putting the blade through the creature's hardened chest isn't as difficult as he expects it to be, not with his magic newly restored to its full glory. And the surprise his blow causes gives Loki just time to activate the beast's antimatter grenade. Perfect.

Easy, even.

Now he just has to drag Thor free.

Except it doesn't work that way. The creature gets its claws on him and suddenly Loki's in a lot more pain than he's ready to handle just now.

 _Focus_. The grenade! "See you in Hel, monster." And then he tries to roll away from it, but the pain is too much and he can only writhe about on the ground choking.

The thing implodes. He's close, too close, but the blast doesn't touch him. Pity.

~

Thor is screaming. Loki can hardly breathe. He needs to focus, to work out a new plan, but Thor is holding him and pleading and he needs to say something ("I'm sorry, I'm sorry") and the pain is awful and he wants to let go.

It would be so easy.

Except it isn't.

Not anymore.

As things start to fade, his mind lights upon an idea. If he appears to die here - but _doesn't_ \- he can finally be free.


	2. Relief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We were joking about this and - well, I should have stopped myself, but I didn't.
> 
> So ashamed!

When the guards dump him unceremoniously in his cell - the cell in which Odin Allfather would have him spend out the rest of his cursed days – and remove his bindings, Loki is at first too keyed-up to notice his predicament. Long, long after they're no longer drowned out by the roaring, the rush of his own blood, Odin's words ( _Your birthright was to die!_ ) ring in his ears.

He's too furious to think.

And then too depressed, when it finally hits him: the axe? The axe will never fall. He's going to live and die and rot in this confounded place, with naught passing for entertainment save a few dusty books and the antics of his dungeon-mates. Not just _live and die_ , either... live and live and live and live _and live_. And only then perhaps die, with the slow passing of an age.

And then he’s furious again.

Ultimately, Loki runs the gamut of what's available to him: He screams. Smashes furniture, watching it fly to pieces around him with wholly unsatisfying snaps and crunches. Punches and kicks himself bloody against the featureless walls. Smears the walls and floor with his own blood. Casts near-worthlessly, clawing ash-smeared fingers through the bloody mess. Howls in impotent, frustrated rage.

Finally, he cries. Pretends he's not - it's the scorch from his own crippled seidr making his eyes water.

Not until he's worn himself completely out and flopped listless upon the divan - one of the few furnishings he (wisely, it now seems) left standing - does it hits him: He needs to relieve himself. He looks around expectantly, knowing he must have missed the thing in the midst of his rage.

But no.

There is no toilet.

No chamber-pot.

No trough.

Just walls and floor and divan and books and blood and mangled-but-utterly-untoiletlike furniture.

~

Before his sentencing Loki was held under house arrest in his own chambers. Trapped, under guard, magic blocked entirely by the rune-engraved collar, cuffs, and shackles. He could not escape, nor cast, nor disrobe to bathe.

Which was sufficiently maddening in its own right.

But he could use the thrice-cursed, Norns-damned toilet. Whenever he felt the need.

~

Now, though? There’s nothing. By Odin's stinking sack, nothing.

Loki tosses and turns on the divan, trying to get comfortable, but it's hopeless. Until he can find relief, there will be no rest. And he may be a monster, but he is no _beast_. The son of Laufey, raised in the House of Odin, will not shit in the corner like a caged dog.

Will not lounge amidst his own filth, the reek of his own urine burning his nostrils.

He who was once King!

With a pained groan he wobbles to his feet and staggers to first the side and then the front of his wretched prison. In the other cells, miscreants go - variously loudly and quietly - about their business, eating and shouting, bickering and napping, picking their teeth and scratching their asses with abandon.

Surely he cannot be the only one so plagued, and there is no privacy in this place - if he can wait but a little, Loki is bound to see how others have solved the problem.

How they have caused their stinking, damnable toilets to appear.

Because he cannot be expected to endure all eternity with nowhere to go. Literally.

He waits and watches at some length, in vain, and then it hits him: If he does not ever go, perhaps the end of eternity will approach rather faster.

That idea holds its charm but a few minutes, at which point his guts rumble and he's reminded that, for all his might, he is powerless against the demands of his own body.

His body, which is increasingly demanding.

Loki is stalking carefully about his cell, looking for something - anything - that might provide a clue, when he spots it: Peeking out from beneath a carelessly thrown book is the very lip of- of a _hole_. A hole in the floor, along the back wall of his cell. He squats carefully, insides protesting as he bends, and pushes the book aside.

A quick sniff ( _UGH!_ ) confirms his worst suspicions.

He draws himself up and backs away sputtering. Loki of Jotunheim, once King of mighty Asgard itself, is NOT going to relieve himself in a hole.

Is not. _Is most certainly NOT._

~

Sadly, his traitorous body has other plans and takes rather a dim view of anything approaching a lengthy standoff.

Apparently he _is_.

And after he debases himself, sinking until he can stoop no lower in life or death… Loki does have to admit he feels better.


	3. Solitary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After his apparent death, Loki is even shorter on friends than usual.
> 
> (could be Loki/Heimdall if you really squint)

"Why are you here?"

They lead off like this each time: Heimdall looking up from his seat beside the small table, face blank, deep voice echoing in the close confines of the cell.

Normally Loki's answer is an equally-predictable (not to mention equally unhelpful... but that's to be expected as well; he is _Loki_ , after all) and frankly bratty "You know full-well why I'm here." Today, though, he's feeling fractionally more honest than normal. He opts to deviate from the pattern. Carefully selects a different approach: "I'm bored."

And he is. Terribly, achingly bored.

"The life of Asgard's King is only more solitary," he continues gamely in the face of Heimdall's frustrating lack of reaction, "when one can neither show one's true self nor speak one's true mind," _and when one's only true companions are by turns dead or gone to Midgard,_ he doesn't add. "Really, it's beyond tedious."

Heimdall's singular face with its rich gold eyes is utterly expressionless, much the same as his voice. "Again, I must ask: Why are you here?"

Loki sighs. Gestures around them, at the featureless dark walls. "I told you. I'm bored. It's only here," - another wide arm-sweep - "that I can be myself."

After a short silence, amazingly, Heimdall _snickers_. Actually snickers. For the first time in Loki's not-infrequent visits, the erstwhile Guardian's reserve has cracked just a little, and it's a fine, fine thing to see. "Loki, you do not even _know_ how to be yourself," Heimdall rumbles. For a split-second his eyes crinkle at the corners; then, like nothing whatsoever happened, the omnipresent mask slides back into place.

Heimdall is- he's shuttered. It's surprisingly disappointing, after a brief hint at something more.

Rather than dignifying the dig with an answer ( _and by so doing risk exposing his own pleasure - his joy at seeing the smallest possible glimpse of Heimdall's inner workings revealed_ ) Loki invites himself to sit as well and takes a long look around.

The cell is far smaller than most, perhaps a quarter the size of those in the public containment ward, but furnished in recognition of Heimdall's rank. There is no need for more space - prisoners in solitary confinement don't share quarters with one another - and this particular cell is made even more cramped by its blocky, heavily-deadened walls. It was engineered to contain the mightiest of monsters.

Which is most ironic, considering its present occupancy; this time it's Loki who laughs, dry and mirthless. Oh, but then again, he is nothing save a weak monster.

When Heimdall yet again fails to react - the crazy one breaking out in fits of bitter laughter scarcely surprises, it seems - Loki stretches in a long, calculated arc over the chair's low back. Yawns. "And you, Guardian? With nothing to see, are _you_ not bored?"

Gold eyes sweep up, up, then catch and hold Loki's green ones. "Oh, but there is always something to see."

Without looking away Loki sits forward, slow and deliberate. Brings one hand up to cup Heimdall's jaw. Runs a thumb - lightly, lightly - over the Guardian's lower lip. "So, tell me: What is it you see?"

Heimdall, still expressionless, leans back just out of Loki's reach. "I see a hole that cannot be filled. Need that cannot be satiated. Fear that cannot be comforted. I see many things. Now take your boredom and leave me be."


	4. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He couldn't dress himself with all that stuff on, could he?

"Please, Prince! I must insist! Hold still!"

It's taken Loki all of three minutes to learn that the young Einherji - new, awkward, green if his prep-the prisoner assignment is any indication - flusters easily. The junior guard is in a hurry; he struggles mightly with everything he touches, from armor to restraints. Even given the overarching circumstances it's amusing and Loki can't (doesn't) resist the urge to make it all worse.

He fidgets for the umpteenth time, sending a leather gauntlet flying. "What did you say your name was, child?"

"It's Halar, and I'm not a _child,_ your- your highness. And _please_ hold still," he insists, almost yelling, "or we will be late and that-."

"And that? And that _what?_ Will be unacceptable?", Loki snarls, cutting Halar off mid-fuss. "Because, what, we can't make a grand, late entrance to _my sentencing?_ " - he laughs, cold and sharp - "You're right, of course. I'd hate to be late and disheveled _for my own death._ "

(Actually, he _would_ hate to be disheveled for his own death, if said death is to be at Odin's hands, but that's not the point and it's nothing the guard - _Halar_ , the youngster called himself - needs to know anyway.)

At any rate, Loki isn't done. He tosses his hair and shuffles his feet, mussing his unstrapped leathers in the process. "Gods, Halar,” he teases as the guard frowns, “have you never dressed even _yourself_ before? At this rate I won't even need to be sentenced; I'll die of old age before we ever leave this room." Not that he's in any true hurry to get going - the Allfather can rot on that cursed throne for all Loki cares - but there’s been no fun to be had since well before he last left Midgard. Any sport is better than none.

One more careless shoulder-roll - Loki catches Halar unsuspecting, inadvertently whipping a buckle straight across that earnest, sweaty face - and all at once they're at the tipping point.

"Your highness! STOP IT! Stand still right now! YOU may care nothing of the Allfather's demands but I DO hope to keep my head attached to its neck this day. PLEASE!" Halar is red-faced and loud, frantic, every last trace of composure gone. He looks as though he would shake Loki if he dared.

Loki tries for Solumn Face but can't quite do it. Smiles what he hopes is sweetly - if he can't be serious, he can at least shoot for _endearing_. "I'm sorry, Halar," (even though he's not). "You're right, of course. It is most inconsiderate of me to drag you into trouble by way of my own misbehavior." He squares up, feet apart and arms held slightly out to the sides. "Go ahead; get it done."

This time, he behaves; he does hold still. Halar continues to struggle with the many clasps and buckles, rattled by their increasing tardiness and handicapped by the ever-present bracelet cuffs-and-chain, but things do move along faster and it's not long before Loki is something approaching _neat and decent._

Halar - he’s hard at work on the last few fasteners, lower lip caught between his teeth as he wrestles with Loki's overtunic - is lost in concentration. So lost, in fact, that he fails to notice Loki creeping forward until mere inches separate them and Loki is quite literally breathing down his neck. At which point Halar _does_ notice, rather violently - he jumps back, very nearly falling. "Your highness, I am not to let you touch me. In fact," - he brandishes a dagger, grip clumsy, looking for all the Nine as though he's never used one before - "I am to use force to stop you, should you try."

They stare one other down, Loki smiling and Halar looking most panicked, for close to a minute before the guard lowers his blade.

Loki takes a step back, head inclined graciously. "But of course. I did not mean to put you in a difficult position," (except he did). "You know," he adds in a conspiratorial whisper, "this would all go a lot faster were I able to help."

"I'm sure you realize that's not possible, Prince," Halar, flustered, stammers. "I cannot remove your restraints until your magic is properly damped down."

“Fine.” Loki sighs. "Get on with it, then." While he did not enjoy the cuffs and collar he was forced to wear on Midgard, the arrangement was far short of unbearable and he's _tired_ of the wickedly-uncomfortable bracelet cuffs. "Where do we start?"

"With the collar, your highness. And then these cuffs, and these shackles." Halar waves each set about in turn.

They are not the same sort used on the flight home.

_Interesting_.

As the guard lets cuffs and shackles dangle over his own forearm, Loki notes the complex runes etching their flat faces. These are of Dwarven make, then. Out of nowhere he shivers, unable to avoid remembering Dwarvish sewing awls and golden Dwarvish golden cord. Ugh.

Still, there's no helping it. Loki raises his chin. "Go ahead. Have done."

Halar fits the thing gently about Loki’s neck. It snaps closed with a metallic _snick_ , and Loki is instantly, horribly nauseated. The room swims. Halar has two heads and they're bobbing out of phase. Loki clenches his teeth. Forces himself to swallow hard against his own rising gorge.

The wrist cuffs somehow manage to be worse. Loki does retch, after they're latched and the bracelet restraints are gone. He nicely spits off to the side, though; Halar looks as green as Loki feels, and they do not need to enter into a vomiting contest. He spits again as his mouth fills with saliva. "May I - may _we_ sit? Just for a moment?"

Halar nods; they drop gratefully onto the closest bench, sprawled against one another. The whole thing is too sickeningly awful; Loki doesn't have it in him to leer or tease, and Halar evidently doesn't have it in himself to care.

Neither panting nor swallowing brings much relief. It's quite some time before Loki, determined not to appear before the Allfather swaying and drooling, manages to rein in his body through sheer force of will. "Finish up," he grits out at last, bringing his ankles together.

With a weak groan the guard complies. Thank gods, the shackles don't seem to worsen the situation further - Loki would rather die here than be reduced to crawling before the dais.

It's a few minutes more, even so, before he can convincingly strut about or speak properly. Once he's back in command of his person, Loki clears his throat. Looks Halar in the eye. "Ready."

The guard wipes his own face with a shaking hand and takes up the chains. "After you, your highness."


	5. Retrospective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How has it come to this?
> 
> Frigga _hurts_.

The heavy doors burst open, slamming against their stops with a loud clang. Normally, this is the point where excited chatter gives way to silence as a hush falls over the waiting assembly. This day, though, there is no assembly. The throne room is already silent. Frigga and Odin have nothing left to say to one another.

The herald steps forward. His voice echoes in the vaulted space. "Allfather, I give you Prince Loki of- Asgard."

Frigga's mouth goes dry.

And there they are: The guards in formation and, between them, her youngest. Her baby. In leathers and heavy chains. Face blank, head high. Feigning - quite skillfully, yes, but even now he cannot fool her completely - cold _defiance_.

Truly, though? He's terrified. She can see it in the stiffness of his shoulders, in the set of his jaw, and it breaks her heart.

~

Thor was a _big_ infant. Not just physically, though that was of course true; he was a big presence. Loud. Quick to express the smallest discomfort, to demand the most attention, to flash that heart-melting smile. Neither she nor her household servants ever felt anything less than certain about what baby Thor wanted.

 _This_ baby? He's a puzzle. A complete mystery. He's nearly silent, even now - months after Odin laid claim in the temple and brought the wee one to her - when he's had ample time to adjust to his new home. He rarely fusses, rarely smiles, rarely makes any wishes known. Instead of _being_ the scene, like his big brother, Loki observes it.

And yet, when she holds him, he clings to her and she can feel his desperation.

She makes a special point of remembering to cuddle him regularly, knowing that - though he may not ask for love on his own - he needs it just the same.

~

It's as a toddler that Loki first starts to reveal the true scope of his seidr. He still prefers to watch from the periphery, silent, but his raw childish emotions spill over in the form of milk sloshed down Thor's chest (as Thor teases his little brother mercilessly) and shattered nursery windows (after Loki's nursemaid takes away a favored toy).

The nursemaid is frantic when Frigga hurries into the room, but Loki is frozen - silent, chin up - among the shards and splinters.

His sad, defiant little face is streaked with tears and blood. When she rushes to him, heedless of her own feet and of the sharp-edged mess beneath them, he clings to her as though his world is ending.

~

By order of the king the two young princelings receive the same training - spell-casting and classroom lessons, sparring and horseback riding - and share the same tutors. While both get by – and more - in all arenas, it's obvious their strengths and styles could not differ more.

Thor, much as he did as a toddler, loves to make noise and to move - to yell, to romp, to throw things. To best with strength. He flattens his little brother easily and regularly. Loki never complains, even when skin bruises and bones fracture. Frigga intercedes where she can, gently steering Loki towards his own gifts, but he clearly adores Thor and wants to follow the ball of energy everywhere.

Together they are a golden comet and its little black tail, the latter dragged along by the gravitational pull of the former.

"Wait for your brother, Thor," Frigga admonishes. "He's not as big as you."

Thor laughs and runs away.

Loki whirls and takes off after him, but trying to catch Thor now is a hopeless endeavor... and from the look on Loki's face as he passes her, Frigga's sure, he knows.

In the end, he sidles back past her alone, eyes downcast. She makes as if to hug him. He dodges her. Frigga feels a tiny spike of fear.

~

Before they grow but a little older, it's amply clear - Thor controls his surroundings by means of cheerful intimidation; Loki controls _his_ with skillful dissembling. Thor towers, beaming; Loki lies.

Frigga wrings her hands over both of them.

Still, her boys are close. They adore one another. She trusts them to keep one another safe.

~

For a long while, that's exactly what happens.

But over time Thor surrounds himself with like-minded companions. Loki surrounds himself with dusty tomes; history, medicine, spells. Always spells.

Loki is increasingly unwelcome amongst Thor's friends. Thor is oblivious, even when Frigga calls him on it. Loki- Loki is not. Thor's friends tease, Loki tricks. At first it _may_ all be in fun - Frigga isn't sure she ever believes that, really - but things escalate quickly. Animosity builds.

By the time of Thor's ill-fated near-coronation, things have deteriorated badly. Loki is walled-off and bitter; Thor is annoyed.

Perhaps inevitably the gathering storm builds and events - the Jotunheim incident, Thor's banishment, Loki's uncovered heritage, Odin's collapse - unfold in dizzying fashion. Frigga tries to head things off, tries to _help_ Loki, but finds she’s lost track – she has no idea how to really reach him anymore.

~

Laufey dies at Loki's hand. For the first time in far, far too long Loki lets her hug him. He still clings; she can still feel his desperation.

She hopes. She fears. Thor overpowers. Loki lies.

Loki falls, and life is not the same.

If she's truly honest with herself, though, Frigga has to admit both boys were already lost - to her, to Odin, perhaps to one another - long prior.

~

Thor faces the loss with sad acceptance. Odin, Frigga thinks, faces it with something akin to relief.

That drives a wedge between them. Frigga cannot accept that Loki is gone; Odin cannot admit Loki may not be gone after all.

~

Things continue spiraling out of control, as is their wont.

Odin is large and loud, Frigga is silent.

~

And so, this day, he walks past her with nary a glance. Her youngest, her baby. She cannot let it stand: "Loki!"

He looks her way at last, anger and fear at war in his face. "Hello, mother. Have I made you proud?"

He _has_. He has made her proud, and amazed, and sick beyond all measure. Frigga loves Loki. Yearns to tell him so, to gather him close, chains and all. To whisper _I love you_ into his hair, that none but him may hear. To feel him cling, to soothe his desperation.

But to do so would be high treason, and would only get the both of them killed. The most she can do is hiss "Please, don't make this worse" by way of warning.

From his angry retort she knows he has missed her point completely. In an instant that feels like an eternity, something inside her withers and dies.

Odin orders her out. It hardly matters.


	6. Mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which is Thor is as sad as he is angry.

Thor stands at the top of the stairs, looking out over the dungeon and trying not to grind his teeth. They don't have much time - every tick of the clock, every shadow’s creep across the sundial brings them that much closer to Asgard's destruction. Malekith intends to lay waste to the city and Thor, unlike the Allfather, has little doubt the elven tyrant will deliver on that promise. Sure, Malekith's army may ultimately be defeated, but he has already proven himself amply willing to discard many lives in single-minded pursuit of his mission. Someone who so easily sacrifices his own people will surely have little care for Asgard's.

No, there is no time to waste. Thor knows he must get this done.

Still, he's dreading it. He hasn't seen Loki since the two of them returned from Midgard, Loki in chains. Odin forbade him any contact during the sentencing, and Thor was of no mind to challenge. Not at that point, not then. In the interim, much has changed.

Much, yes, but not Thor's desire to avoid Loki.

Loki, who is bound to be furious - Thor _wasn't_ instructed to avoid the dungeon (only Frigga had been denied that privilege). And Thor himself is powerfully angry as well. Tempers will rage, sharp words will fly, (further) regrets will be sown, and time will be wasted.

 _Time, like the time he is wasting now._ Thor sighs, loudly. Resigns himself to his fate. Draws himself up to his full height – regal, commanding - and, finally, makes his troubled way down the worn stone staircase.

Loki is in leathers, his cell and his person neat and orderly. For a moment Thor feels a flicker of hope; this may actually go _better than anticipated._

Then Loki spots him.

Sure enough, into the pit things fall: "After all this time," - Loki's face twists into a vicious snarl - "now you come to visit me, brother? Why? To gloat? To mock?"

Thor tries not to rise to it, not to meet wrath with wrath - he has a point to convey, a tone to set, and it is important that he do so properly - but it's hard. Loki is like a caged animal.

Thor swallows. Forces himself to explain, quietly. Reasonably. Rationally. He's saying what he believes are the right words – “Enough, Loki. No more illusions.” - taking what he believes is the best approach, and then-...

And then.

In response to his command the air shimmers and- and everything changes.

"Now you see me, brother."

Thor blinks. Blinks again, barely resisting the urge to rub his eyes. Because- because... _Gods._ His- his brother is no longer standing before him, spitting insults through the spell-reinforced barrier. Instead, Loki is- well, he is slumped against the far wall. He's- he's filthy. He's barefoot and filthy and bleeding, like the crazy blind beggars who soak in their own filth outside the city walls.

Everything in the cell is broken. The walls are streaked with gods-know-what, and in the midst of it Loki-.

Something hot and painful twists in Thor's chest. For a moment he almost forgets himself, forgets his mission; he wants nothing more than to go to his brother.

But he must not. Cannot. This- this _thing_ is not his brother, and Thor is not here to offer solace. There is neither time nor justification for comfort. Loki manipulates, Loki wounds, Loki lies. For all Thor knows, _this_ display could be the false one: A carefully-constructed diorama, a glamour carefully calculated to tug at long-abandoned hopes. At foresworn heartstrings.

Regardless, tug it does.

With considerable effort Thor pushes his emotions down and walks briskly around the cell, stopping at the barrier nearest Loki: Loki, who looks up at him in naked anguish “Did she suffer?” 

Up close, his brother is painfully thin and looks utterly exhausted. _Illusion, illusion. Besides, Loki brought this upon himself. Stay on track,_ Thor reminds himself. _Focus._

Loki. Loki has asked him a question. About mother, about why he's come.

Thor gives the answer he's carefully rehearsed, over and over, in the wake of their mother's death: "I did not come here to share our grief. I came to offer you a far richer sacrament.” He pauses, searching Loki’s face; he has his brother’s true attention now, not just Loki’s raw pain. “I know you seek vengeance as much as I do," Thor continues. "You help me escape Asgard, and I will grant it to you. Vengeance. And afterward," - he gestures - "this cell."

Emotions, most of them undecipherable, parade in quick succession across his brother’s face: Sorrow? Anger? Deep pain? Love? Hate? “You must be truly desperate to come to me for help. What makes you think you can trust me?”

 _What I wouldn’t give to,_ Thor thinks, saying instead “I don't. Mother did.” _I love you, Loki, with all my heart, but_ “you should know that - when we fought each other in the past - I did so with a glimmer of hope that my brother was still in there somewhere.” _I cannot afford that weakness now; I must behave as though_ “that hope no longer exists to protect you. You betray me, and I will kill you,” _so please, please don’t betray me, because killing you will destroy all that is left of me._

Thor can’t. He just can’t.


	7. Onward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more or less a follow-on to Mission. I figure our boys had to do some talking in between the bits we saw onscreen... otherwise, the whole progression from "I hate you and will kill you" to "I'm screwing with your head, brother" to "let's bicker like an old married couple as we steal a spaceship" makes little sense, especially from a Thor perspective.

When Thor initially releases him, powering down the containment system and letting him step free for the first time in what seems like forever, Loki is so overwhelmingly giddy he can hardly function.

It's beyond easy to forget his cut feet and bruised forearms, to go scampering off without care for appearances. Thor, though, is - as ever – rather more grounded:

"Ugh, Loki, you reek" - it's true, he does - "Can you neaten yourself with seidr, or do I need to dump you in the dungeon baths?

Oh, _that_ would be a merry chase, but Thor appears to be in rather a hurry and Loki's enjoying his new-found freedom far too much to risk losing it again so quickly. "I can do it, Thor. Just- please give me a moment... I've been keeping things hidden for _propriety's sake_ since- well, for a while, and it's taken more than a bit out of me."

Thor frowns. "You'd best regain your powers quickly, Loki, or I’ll be locking you back up and going on alone. It is hardly your _brawn_ I have need of."

Loki grumbles under his breath, but his mind is already elsewhere and his heart's not in arguing.

Must. Neaten. Right. Not reeking will be doubtless be easier if he starts from scratch - one less layer to clean that way. Loki turns his back on Thor, still lost in planning, and hauls his filthy tunic off over his tangled head.

~

As Loki's pale back comes into view, Thor can't stop himself in time: He gasps. His stomach drops; he's not even entirely certain why. "Loki, is this real?"

"Hm?" His brother peers over a bony shoulder, expression puzzled, arms still caught up in the ratty prison garb.

Thor steps closer. And again. Reaches out, gently touching a finger to one of many long, angry scars crisscrossing pale skin. "This." He drags his finger along the mark, feeling the sharp points of Loki's spine. "Is this real, or are you making a play for my sympathy?"

"Because gods know your sympathy has gotten me _oh so far,_ " Loki snarls, jerking away. "Don't touch me. Just- don't. And, yes, this is real. This is me." He spreads his arms wide and spins, showing off an ugly array of healed lash marks, cuts, and burns. "Not so pretty, eh?"

Thor's ears start to ring. It's sickening, worse even than seeing his brother no better than a common beggar. "Who did this to you? I will-."

"You will _what,_ Thor? Shake his hand? Clap him fondly on the shoulder? Wish him greater success on the morrow?", Loki spits. "Spare me your- your- just _spare_ me." He drops the tunic in a heap on the cold stone and sets to unlacing his breeches. "If you're feeling delicate, dear brother, you may wish to avert your eyes."

Thor coughs. He doesn’t avert his gaze, instead deliberately letting his eyes fall out of focus and carefully _not_ looking too closely at Loki's scrawny rump or shriveled cock as the filthy leggings fall away. He is a battle-hardened warrior who has inflicted much and seen more but, still - much as he has tried to convince himself otherwise - this is his baby brother. "Do not play games with me, Loki,” he growls. “Who did this to you? Tell me!"

Loki laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Bossy pleading does not suit you. Not now. Such sentiment from one who has pledged to kill me before the day is up."

Thor has to swallow hard to keep from vomiting. "So you do mean to betray me."

The air shimmers again, less brightly than it had in the cell earlier, and Loki stands before him clean. Whole. Unmarked. Naked and beautiful and smiling sadly. "I mean only to be myself. But we both know how that tends to go. Far too often you take it altogether too personally." A gesture, and he's neatly covered - heavy leathers, vambraces, chest plate, boots. Not battle gear by any means but it will have to do.

Thor looks his brother up and down. It hurts to see Loki so normal, knowing what lies beneath. "Answer my question," he prods quietly, "and then we must take our leave of this place."

He tells himself Loki's smile is kinder this time.

"Oh, but you pose so _many_ questions." Loki shrugs. "I know not where to start." In this light his clothing hangs too loosely; that, too, hurts to see. "The Chitauri are poor hosts, brother; I must tell you, their hospitality is sorely lacking. But as everyone is so fond of reminding, I brought it all upon myself. Therefore, do not concern yourself with it. And my betrayal?" He rakes his hair back with both hands in a gesture so familiar Thor has to struggle not to hug him. "For that, you will have to wait until things have unfolded. Judge me only in the aftermath." He laughs, nodding towards the stairs "Shall we?" 

They climb towards the servants' level: Loki one step ahead, Thor - mindful of Loki's earlier reaction - pointedly _not_ steering with a hand to the small of the back. As they walk the length of the hall, Loki plays at one glamour after another until Thor is thoroughly tired of it; he's almost relieved when a pair of guards swing into view and force him to clap a hand over Loki's unstoppable _mouth_. As they duck out of sight behind a column Loki turns to face him, eyes sparkling. "Seriously, Thor?"

Thor frowns. Looks Loki up and down. Says nothing.

"You could've given me a weapon," Loki continues. "My dagger, something." His expression is sweetly childish - innocent - but Thor knows better. He catches Loki's eye, smiling in return. As he digs about in his own breeches, though, ostensibly honoring the request, Thor feels almost sorry. Not quite, somehow, and the feeling passes quickly.

Busy as he is with his own little scheme he almost doesn't register Loki's gleeful _Ah, finally...a little common sense,_ accurate an observation as it happens - unwittingly - to be.

A sharp _snick_ catches Loki's attention; he looks quickly down as the rune-graved cuffs whir into position.

Perhaps it makes Thor as bad a person as is his brother. The expression on Loki's face is priceless, though, and Thor wins so rarely at _these_ games; he can't hold back. Or, at least, he doesn't: "I thought you liked tricks!"


	8. Exchange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING: This is dark and contains a fair amount of Loki whomp. If that's not your thing, give this one a pass.**
> 
>  
> 
> This follows Before, after Odin has handed down Loki's sentence and sent him off to be locked away. Not all Einhenjar are as nice as Halar is.

"You _like_ this, don't you?"

Actually, Loki doesn't - the initial nausea has all but passed, but he feels naked and drained without his seidr, not to mention exhausted from the audience with Odin - but it doesn't seem to be the wisest time to venture an opinion. The guard – whose fingers are fisted around the collar, forcing the foul thing painfully against the base of Loki's skull - is large; without his power, Loki is naught but a man.

He says nothing. Hopes fervently that will suffice.

It doesn't.

Brawny biceps flexing, the guard - not Halar this time; another member of the retinue, no one Loki knows, tasked with _getting the prisoner situated_ \- drags Loki up up up until he's forced to teeter on his tiptoes. Grabs his jaw, grip like a vice. Forces his head back and forth. The collar catches in Loki's hair and pulls sharply; he winces, the guard smiles.

There’s not the least hint of deference in this one’s expression. This Einherji is not going to _prince_ Loki this or _your highness_ him that.

It’s more than a little concerning. Especially down here, where no one will walk by.

A sharp shake breaks Loki out of his own thoughts. "You're a pretty one, aren't you? Even after all you've been through. Oh, yes, I've read the reports," the guard leers. "Tortured you, didn't they? Whipped you, burned you. Beat you senseless. And what did it teach you? Not a single fucking solitary thing. So? You like it. That's my theory." The guard’s dark laugh sends a shiver down Loki's back from sore neck all the way to tailbone. "But, yes, pretty." He sneaks a thumb up, digs the pad against Loki's lips hard enough that Loki tastes blood. "Fiesty, too," the guard adds with a snort as Loki tries to jerk away. "Everyone calls Thor Odin's good-looking son. Eh, it's all a matter of taste, I say. Don't you agree?"

This time, yes, in a vacuum Loki does agree. But he's uncomfortable and afraid and it's been a long fucking day and he _wants this to stop_ and besides it's not like he can nod anyway, not with his head all jacked up like this.

So he makes a little noise. It doesn't come out the way he intends - it's almost a whimper - and he immediately wishes he could take it back. Especially when the guard's eyes narrow dangerously.

"Oh, that's nice. Let's see if we can get you to do it again." He brings a leg up, knee brushing ungently against Loki's inner thigh, then rests a foot against one of the ankle shackles and steps down heavily. It _hurts,_ with the white-hot, sickening burn of a deep bone bruise. The pressure doesn't let up, and doesn't let up, and he's right in Loki's face now, and-.

In the end, despite all best efforts to the contrary, Loki whimpers outright.

"Mm, yes." The guard's fingers dig into Loki's jaw. "Perfect. We're going to have fun, you and I. Really, we will. You have no idea how long I've waited for this."

 _Fuck._ At that Loki manages to find his voice: "Excuse me, should I _know_ you?", he grits out, struggling against the guard's rough grip. Because this feels personal.

And - oh. _Oh._ Oh _fuck,_ oh. - it is:

"Me? Hah. No, you're not one to mingle with the Allfather's pawns, are you? But you might know my brother. He was killed by _frost giants_ ," - he spits the word, like it tastes of poison - "in the King's treasure vault. If rumor among our troops is to be believed, and normally it is, I think you know exactly what - not to mention _where,_ or _when_ \- I mean."

Loki shuts his eyes. Swallows hard. "I'm deeply sorry for that." He is. Present situation aside, it was stupid and childish and misguided and expensive far beyond its gain. If he'd had any idea the forces that one prank-gone-wrong would set in motion, Loki would never have even considered doing it. 

Not that the guard knows, or cares. "Sorry, you say? You think you're sorry? I hardly think you're sorry enough. But that's okay, because we're going to fix that for you. What do you think is fair exchange for a brother?"

He leans in, closer and closer, until his lips nearly brush Loki's; Loki makes to twist away but can’t; between the guard’s fingers and the collar, he has nowhere to go.

The guard laughs. "Oh, you're more than pretty enough, I assure you. But I think I'd rather _beat_ you, actually. It would be a lot easier to explain if we were unexpectedly interrupted, no?" He gives the collar a sharp tug. "Because I don't think your word carries much weight these days. Do you?"

Loki sucks in a quick breath, about to agree, but before he can speak the world explodes in a hot blast of agony. He tries to curl in on himself, gagging and choking, half-hanging from the collar unthinking, and does manage to nearly pull free.

Largely because the guard is _laughing_.

_Huh?_

Gods, the pain. It's close to a minute before Loki's frantic brain puts two and two together; he's been kneed in the ball sack, his leathers no match for Einherjar plate armor.

Before he recovers fully enough to stand properly, the guard jerks him forward by the collar and drives a fist hard into Loki’s gut. This time, as his face hits the cold floor, Loki near-gratefully realizes he's been allowed to fall free.

It doesn't help much; he's too winded to do anything save roll about gasping for air and the heavy, tangled chains leave him little chance of escape. Two good kicks later a sharp snap – closely followed by crushing, stabbing pain - tells him a rib has broken; he finally manages to curl in, covering his bad side, arms protecting his face as tears and saliva pool beneath him. He cringes. Waits - dim, shaking, hopeless - for the next blow.

It's not like praying is going to help any, after all.

But the blow – the pain - doesn't come: Instead someone clatters down the stairs, armor creaking. "Hey! HEY! What's going on down here?"

The guard straightens, stepping away. "The prisoner attacked me! I had to throw him down. I had no way to signal you, sir."

"Did he injure you?"

"Just my hand, sir."

Some clunking, a grunt, a pause.

"Get that seen to. And send Halar down - the prisoner was good for him earlier. I'll keep an eye on the situation until he gets here."

Thankfully, the officer - it must be an officer - keeps a safe distance from Loki and makes no move to touch him. By the time Halar's footsteps echo down the hall, Loki has almost managed to stop crying.


	9. Sight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows Solitary, at some distance. So, after the end of the movie, when Loki has to make do with being Odin in public.
> 
> Most everywhere in Asgard is public.
> 
>  
> 
> _re: The scars that keep coming up across the later chapters - when Loki fake-dies on Svartalfheim, he doesn't go white or blue... he goes sort of ashy, with a lot of odd marks on his neck. I'm choosing to interpret those marks as scars he got in the Void/at the hands of his Chitauri captors; scars he normally glamours away, but with a glamour less deeply-rooted than the one Odin gave him._

The door seal hisses. Heimdall sighs.

As has been universally true since shortly after he was locked away, the person who steps into Heimdall's cell looks like Odin but _looks_ like Loki.

It isn't until he's fully inside, door safely re-secured, that Loki trades one glamour for another. The cell itself does not damp seidr; it has a containment field within its thick walls that Heimdall _sees_ as a faint _blurring_ , but nothing more. Loki is free to trick as he sees fit.

And apparently Loki sees fit to appear before Heimdall in the double-layered glamour he has worn since- since what everyone – Thor, Odin, even Frigga, may Valhalla welcome her to its mighty halls - euphemistically terms _The Fall._

_Since he tried to kill himself and botched it,_ Heimdall thinks. Doesn't say. Never says, just as he never tells Loki he can _see_ right through his glamours, past the awful scars Loki hides and down to the equally-scarred blue underneath.

Loki says he comes here to be himself. Heimdall smiles a little on the inside; there’s a certain sad humor in the way - for once - Loki fails to recognize the irony in his own words.

"Why are you here?", Heimdall asks, not because he actually wonders but because this has become their little dance. Loki makes his way here to, rather aptly, satisfy a purpose within a purpose:

He is officially here for the same reason that’s brought every king before him - the real Odin, and Bor; even Loki himself, during his brief legitimate reign - to seek Heimdall's counsel. To profit from his _sight_. While the _view_ here isn't nearly as unimpeded as is the one from the guardhouse, Heimdall still _sees_ plenty well enough to be both tactically and strategically useful. He serves and protects Asgard, as best he can, even when he would rather not.

Beyond that, though, at the heart of it Loki is lonely. In the best of times Loki's Aesir companions were (close, but) few; these are not the best of times. Apparently even the mighty god of lies cannot meet his own needs play-acting a doddering warmonger slumped atop Asgard's golden dais.

Under other circumstances, Heimdall might feel pity. But this brat tried to kill him and, moreover, was derisive. Rude. Condescending, as if the great pillars of Aesir society were nothing more than filth beneath his feet. And Heimdall has a long memory. Odin may have to sleep an age in order for this prince to win Heimdall's grudging friendship, he tells himself, meaning it.

Heimdall, for his part, is _not_ particularly lonely; his has only ever been a solitary lot.

Be all that what it may, Loki is a more interesting conversationalist than were his ancestors and it is rather pleasant to watch him stalk carefully around the very edges of his own needs. Heimdall has come to enjoy their odd little talks, in his own way.

So he starts things off in the usual manner, with the usual question, secure in the knowledge he has _got this down_ and will not be surprised.

Except he _is_ surprised: Loki - face pinched, expression tightly closed-off - rolls his shoulders. "My back hurts. I need you to rub it."

Not want, need.

Heimdall is _this close_ to squawking _you what?!_ but somehow manages not to. He waits until he knows his voice will hold steady and asks "Why can't a Healer rub it?" instead.

Loki snorts. "It's not Odin's mighty back that needs rubbing; it's mine." The look in his eyes doesn't match his flat tone; he looks half-desperate and that makes Heimdall a little cruel.

"Which of your selves would that be, Loki? Your pink one or your blue one?"

Loki stiffens, furious-looking. "Right. To you I am nothing more than a monster."

_You are a stubborn and bratty child,_ "not a monster, no. Just a creature which refuses to even know itself," Heimdall half-teases. There's something naked in Loki's eyes today and it's getting to Heimdall... blocking him, somehow, from being as nasty as this not-quite-monster deserves.

Loki hisses. Frowns, hurt anger not yet completely faded from his face. "You know you cannot touch my _blue self,_ as you so delicately put it."

So Loki truly means to get this. This- this contact, whatever it is.

Heimdall jerks his head towards the bed. "Take - or keep - whatever form you'd like. I will make do."

He doesn't watch as Loki strips out of his leathers and tunic. Only when the bed creaks does he spin about-

-to find Loki sprawled on his stomach atop the blankets, dressed only in his leggings, face turned to the wall.

This is- awkward. Odd. Heimdall doesn't touch; he _sees._ He crosses the small space and squats, sitting on his heels next to the bed. Touches Loki's bare, thin back with one large hand. Blurts out "I can see your scars, you know," because it abruptly feels wrong not to. It seems he sometimes tells this after all.

Loki goes rigid under Heimdall's palm. "It's okay, Loki, shh," Heimdall soothes. When there's no response, Heimdall takes a long, slow breath. Stands, letting his fingers trail lightly along the sweep of Loki's ribs. Climbs onto the bed, a bit clumsily. Straddles Loki's hips, weight on his own knees, wraps his fingers over Loki's shoulders. Takes another breath and gets to work.

In the end he has to close his eyes; the disconnect between what he feels (Loki’ skin smooth against his own, sliding warm and soft over lean muscle and too-prominent bone) and what he _sees_ (the scars, the pain that must have accompanied them) too jarring to bear.

Heimdall carefully doesn’t think; Loki, thankfully, makes no sound at all.


	10. Mortal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place between Onward and Freedom - our boys have a little chat about Jane at a small table, somewhere along the way to the Svartalfar ship.
> 
> And isn't it something we all wonder? Thor and Jane do seem awfully close based on awfully little.

"Does she kiss uncommonly well, Thor?"

Loki catches him with a mouthful of fermented cider; some goes down wrong, choking him miserably. The frothy liquid burns, and it's a good minute before Thor can speak again. "Excuse me," he finally manages to splutter as he wipes his streaming eyes with the back of a hand.

"Does. She. Kiss. Uncommonly. Well?" Loki draws the inquiry out, enunciating carefully, as though Thor is slow or hard-of-hearing. "Your mortal," Loki tacks on helpfully.

Thor coughs one last time. "I heard you the first time, Loki, and she is not _my mortal_."

"Oh, but you wish she was, brother. And I would know why."

"You will know nothing as long as you persist in acting so."

Loki faux-pouts, eyes twinkling. " _Acting so?_ Acting how? I was merely inquiring nicely after your mortal's-."

"LOKI!" It comes out a bit louder than he'd intended and sets off a fresh round of coughing.

"I'm right here, Thor," Loki snipes, shaking his head as if to clear it and poking enthusiastically at the closer ear. "There's no need to shout, nor to retch."

"I _asked_ you not to call her my mortal, and-"

Loki laughs and cuts him off. "You asked me nothing, brother, except to repeat myself. And then you claimed you had not. I think all this kissing has addled your brains. Shh," - he holds up a long-fingered hand, palm out - "I'm talking. It's not your turn. Honestly." He huffs. "As I was trying to say: Your fuss aside, what should I call your mortal, if not that?"

"She has a name, brother. It is _Jane Foster,_ and I would have you use it."

"Gladly, Thor." Loki beams. "Does _Jane Foster_ " - he imitates Thor's way of speaking with uncanny precision; always has, and it's most annoying - "kiss uncommonly well?"

" _LOKI!!_ " This time he _does_ mean to bellow, and he's more than a little gratified (and then, yes, a bit guilty about it thereafter) to see his impossible sibling wince in genuine pain.

"Brother, your rules today are as changeable and arbitrary as my own. I have made myself clear. I have used _Jane Foster's_ name. I have kept my questions simple and direct. What more would you have me do?" Loki's innocent sincerity might just pass for truth, were it not for the little twitches around the corners of his mouth; he's fighting hard not to laugh, and only barely succeeding.

"I would have you _be quiet_ for once in your long life, Loki," Thor growls. "What business of yours is Jane's kissing skill, anyway? If you are in need of someone to kiss you, you shall have to find a love interest of your own."

At that Loki does laugh. "What, in prison? Perhaps a marauder? An enemy of the realm? Besides, brother, I have eyes only for you." He leans close, eyes in question alternating quickly between Thor’s own, and wets his lips with a bit of pink, pink tongue.

It catches Thor off balance - for a brief moment, he thinks Loki actually means to kiss him. His brother is very close, lips very red and very wet, and Thor is horrified to realize he has no idea what to do.

Loki brings up a hand, as if to cup Thor's face, and then slaps him playfully instead. "Thor! I do love you, brother, I do... but not like that." He leans back in his chair, laughing hard. "Evidently I'm not quite as _truly desperate_ as you are." Loki looks down, lower lip caught between his teeth. When he makes eye contact again, he's no longer smiling. "I do have a serious question, Thor. You seem ready to risk a great deal for - is it Ms.? - Foster. _I_ would understand why. Is that too much to ask?"


	11. Sand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place after Freedom, before Solitary.
> 
> It got a little long - sort of a one-and-a-half-shot. XD
> 
> The premise: Perhaps it was the sandstorm that led Thor and Jane to abandon Loki's body... and perhaps it wasn't entirely coincidental that there happened to be a sandstorm.

The hardest part is holding still. Loki has been in worse pain - though not often; by the grating that accompanies even the shallowest of breaths he knows the creature's blade has shattered several ribs at both its ingress and egress points, and his chest is filling none-too-slowly with blood - but he can't recall a single time where he hasn't been at some liberty to react.

Even with someone or something in hot pursuit, one can risk a silent grimace. The dead? No, there is no room for posthumous grimacing.

This really isn't what Loki'd imagined he'd be thinking about when the time came - when fate would have him near-mortally wounded, practically staring Death herself in the face - but yet here they are... his mind is as lost as his body, scrabbling at anything in desperate hope of finding footing.

Fuck. He _has_ to hold still. He can sneak in the tiniest of breaths here and there - as Thor rocks his broken body, screaming - but the slightest hint of anything more and he'll give himself away.

Which will mean going back to that gods-forsaken (figuratively, now literally; a dying mind is a funny thing, apparently) cell.

And, if it all narrows down to just the two choices, he _will_ die rather than go back there.

~

"We can't stay here, Thor. We're too exposed. Someone may come." In a crisis Jane is good at acting, bad at emoting. Darcy calls it _going all science-y._ Jane prefers to explain it to herself as something along the lines of _being good at keeping a cool head when it matters._

She's pretty sure: This? This is when it matters.

Thor rages and rocks and keens, Loki's limp, bleeding body gathered in his big arms.

She's not getting through, not at all, and just now she's afraid to touch him.

"THOR! _Please!_ " She takes a tentative step closer, then another. " _THOR!!_ "

It's like screaming into the wind of a terrible, howling storm... just as frustrating, just as fruitless.

~

Loki casts about for something, anything, that might convince Thor to set his body down and _leave already._ For his tiny new seed of a plan to have any hope at germination, Jane and Thor need to abandon him here. And soon. He can only hold still so long; he's really starting to drown in his own blood and ultimately intent will fail in the face of reflex.

 _It hurts it hurts it hurts he wants to roll over and thrash about so, so badly!_ Gods, Thor, stop already.

~

_Loki is- is dead. Loki. Loki._

_Jane. Jane is safe. Jane is here. Jane is saying something;_ Thor can see her lips, her mouth, moving. Her hands, gesturing.

From her earnest expression, she thinks her message is of some import. He forces himself to focus on her. "What?"

She steps nearer, oddly tentative. "I'm- I'm sorry, Thor, but we need to go. Should we try to carry him? Should we do something for him - with him - here? I'm-," - she falters - "I'm sure he would want us to finish this. He- he _saved_ us, Thor."

She is right, of course. Hers is a science of logic and reason. And yet there are too many questions; Thor feels as though he is paralyzed. Rooted to this spot, hands tangled in Loki's dirty, blood-streaked leathers.

~

In the faint echo of his seidr Loki can feel there's no living thing - save Thor and the mortal; Loki is dimly aware she's trying to help, but moving Thor is like steering a typhoon - within casting distance, and he's not got the power to launch anything remotely approaching a mighty, ground-shaking tremor. Not in this weakened state. Not so near to dying.

_Something something anything please!_

The wind gusts up and a tiny whirling cloudlet of sand dances by, just beyond the reach of Loki's hand. Sand. _Sand. Blown sand._

Sand is light, wind is easy. This, even dying, Loki can do.

It will need to come at them from some distance, in order to appear believable. Natural. Convincing. Thor in his grief might not suspect a full-blown sandstorm spinning up out of nowhere, but the mortal – Jane - is sharp and attentive. She will notice, and _know_ , and speak, and this will all have been for nothing.

With what meager power he can muster - and he dearly hopes he'll have enough left to heal himself, even a little; now that he's had even this bitter taste of not dying, he longs for more - Loki pulls a twisting windstorm up the valley, letting it gather sand as it comes. He doesn't need to see it to be certain it's working; the sand whips along with a hissing roar. Loud. Louder. Near and nearer and louder still.

~

 _Sandstorm_. That breaks through the haze; Thor's mind finally comes unstuck. _Jane. The Aether. Sand._ Move or die; they must go.

With a choked-back sob he lays Loki's body gently down. Looks over a shoulder: The blowing sand is nearly upon them. There is no time for rituals, for rites.

It will have to do.

~

When Thor finally lets go, the sudden _shift and drop_ all but wrenches a cry from Loki's throat. Somehow, barely, he does manage to stay silent, to remain still, and - oh, bliss - Thor and Jane finally take off running. One last screamed _I'm sorry, brother_ , near-inaudible over the encroaching sand, and they're gone.

A little push and the wind turns, heading them away from the downed ship and off into the hills.

The first thing Loki does with his newfound freedom is thrash about weakly. There's no time left to indulge, though - he can't breathe at all lying flat now, not with all the blood. Teeth gritted against the pain, he somehow gets his elbows underneath himself and pushes up until he's half-sitting.

And then coughs, which turns out to be a serious tactical error. The scenery tips and spins, sand shooting everywhere. His vision tunnels in dangerously.

No! There can be no passing out here... passing out is certain death. No.

~

At a tug from Thor, Jane holds up. They turn and look back, squinting against the onslaught, but there is nothing to see. Nothing but sand. They do not stop again.

~

Loki forces himself up to sit cross-legged, head in hands, and concentrates his last bits of seidr on closing the torn blood vessels. On vanishing the pooled, choking blood. The ribs will have to wait - it's unfortunate, but there's really no other choice. His breastplate is enough to keep things the better part of stable, until he can get to shelter.

He'd love to shield his face from the sand, but he has nothing left and he can't let the storm tail off until he's sure Thor and the mortal are well and truly gone.

Eventually it hits him; there will never be a good time to fight his way back to standing. His mind is sluggish, his body still struggling to draw in enough air to function. Loki makes himself get to his knees, then his feet. Slowly, dizzily, painfully, but he's up and staggering towards their hastily-abandoned craft (and away from the hills towards which he'd herded Thor).

_One step, then another. One breath, then another._

Sand. Rock. Pain.

It feels like a fucking eternity, but he gets it done. When Loki finally collapses in a messy tangle - behind a slag heap just this side of the little ship, escape within easy reach, spitting sand and bloody froth - it tastes like victory.


	12. Loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After Sand, just after the end of the movie (well, the end of the post-credits scene).
> 
> Thor and Jane wrestle with different flavors of guilt.
> 
> _I'm not very happy with how this one came out - not sure why. I hope someone here likes it better than I do._

"Do you think- there at the end," - Thor wrings his hands, not looking up at her, all misery and pain - "did he know- did he believe- that I- I-..."

And then he's crying, again, huge wracking sobs that hurt to watch. Jane rests a small hand on his arm. She's so powerless in the face of his grief. There's nothing to be said; she makes what she hopes is a sympathetic-sounding little hum, knowing even as she does it that the gesture amounts to... nothing.

"I- I should have _saved_ him. He was no _match_ for those creatures." – (Jane thinks Loki was a pretty impressive match for the dark elves, actually, but this is not about that; she listens, doesn't attempt to correct) - "It was my- my _duty_ to save him, and yet I did not. I let him down, Jane, when it mattered most. Despite all my promises, my brave words. And then in my sorrow I- I called him a fool." He snuffles loudly. "My last time seeing- our last moments together, and I could do nothing but _lecture_ him. I- I could not tell him goodbye, nor that- that I l-loved him, nor-... I-..."

He trails off, silence broken only by the sound of his wet breathing, and by the occasional splat of a tear against the floor. After a bit he brings his big, capable, defeated hands up to cover his face. Jane knows - she _knows_ \- she should say something, do something.

But this? This is not her strength.

Personal shortcomings aside, too, she can't even begin to fathom how a loss of such magnitude must hurt. How do you share such a vast history - a thousand Midgard years together, give or take - and then just pick yourself up and carry on alone?

And poor Thor has had to endure this loss not once but twice (that she knows of – in their long history, there may be more); first after Loki's - well, she's not quite sure what to call it, suicide or misunderstanding or whatnot, and it's not like she was _here_ for any of it anyway - and now again, with- this.

_All that fighting._

It seems the brothers had lots to say to each other - Thor, clearly, and Loki likely as well - but spent their time dancing around it all instead. Now the clock has ticked down. The buzzer has sounded. The final curtain, the big game, the veil. People use so many pretty clichés to paint over grief, to whitewash pain, and yet not of them helps in the slightest.

Thor and Loki never talked and nothing is going to fix that.

Jane rolls her neck, then her shoulders. She needs to be careful; if she lets it, the sheer force of Thor's grief will drown them both.

~

It wasn't like this at first. Thor marched resolutely on after Loki's death, getting Jane safely home (well, that was probably mostly on her but she'll gladly give him credit; he's lost so much as it is), saving the world, saving the Nine Realms. Going back to Asgard, all resigned determination, to make things right with his father. Coming back to her, to Midgard, just as he'd promised.

It wasn't until shortly thereafter, obligations met and duties dispatched and _nothing left to do_ , that Thor'd- well, he'd fallen apart. As soon as the only thing left to address was "okay, now what?", he was done.

~

He tries again, scrubbing roughly at his face. "I loved him, Jane. Do you- oh, gods. Sorry," he rasps as the tears start afresh. "Do you think he knows? Knew?"

She squeezes his arm, trying to buy herself time. Her mind brims with answers, each waiting to spill out her mouth. But none of them is the answer Thor wants, or needs:

_Loki was too caught up in his own crap to notice anything you did or felt._

_Loki was incapable of love and consequently would not have recognized it in you._

_What difference does it make? He's dead, the realms are safe, and we're still here._

No, not helpful. And probably not even fair, or at least not complete - at the end of his life Loki had saved hers. And Thor's. And by extension everyone else's, by giving Thor one last chance to defeat Malekith.

And earlier, through her poisoned daze, she'd been dimly aware of Thor's and Loki's argument on the- the flying war canoe. Loki'd been combative; he'd sounded furious and bitter and hurt, but not - honestly - unmoved.

_Apathy, not hatred, is the absence of caring._

She steels herself. Thor has given so much for her, for humankind; Loki did as well, despite the false starts and incredibly, unforgivably wrong turns. Surely comforting Thor in this is the least she can do.

She leans down to kiss his shoulder.

Swallows. Twice, pretending it's the threat of impending tears closing her throat.

"I don't see how he could _not_ have known."

_It's barely even a lie,_ she thinks as Thor relaxes a little. _And besides, Loki would enjoy a nice little falsehood and a bit of good acting._

Jane, though? She's not like Loki.


	13. Nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NOTE: This one is M for a couple of brief sexual scenes**
> 
>  
> 
> Takes place sometime after Relief, in the dungeon.
> 
> As above, there some sexual content here... but it's sad, not smutty.

The days crawl, the nights crawl. Or maybe it's the other way around. Try as he might, Loki finds it's impossible to differentiate one from the other. One from the next. Everything crawls, and nothing.

The first day - Loki thinks it's a day; he can't have lost all sense of time's passage so quickly, can he? - is beyond awful. But once he tires of smashing up the place and settles in, flopped lazily on the chaise that does double duty as a makeshift bed, the next few might-be-days aren't too bad. There are books to read. Prisoners to study. Meals to anticipate. Customs to master. Guards to watch.

And then the boredom sets in, bone-deep and unyielding.

The books don't hold his attention. The prisoners generally stand around sullenly or sit staring into space, only interacting with one another when new cellmates arrive. On rare occasion they fight; their wrangling is tedious, uninventive, dull. The food is insipid and uninspired. Loki finds he really can't be bothered with attempting to fit in, especially since everyone ignores him like he isn't there, and the guards (perhaps wisely) keep their distance.

He sees Halar once or twice, from down the corridor, but it's not like they're _friends_. Plus, Halar is the only guard who has showed him nothing but kindness, even when there was no reason to do so. Loathe as he may be to admit it, Loki feels more than a small bit indebted. Befriending a prisoner - especially _this_ prisoner, who is kept here alone for many, many reasons - is only courting trouble. So - though he'd like to... he'd really like to - Loki makes no effort to catch Halar's attention on those rare-feeling occasions when the young guard nears his cell.

Halar, for his part, does the same.

No one comes to see Loki. No one pays him any mind. Food appears and disappears, but isn't _brought_. It's not long - at least, it doesn't seem long - before Loki begins to feel as if he's ceasing to exist. From time to time he pinches himself to be sure he's still alive. As the day night day nights pass, more and more, pinching gives way to clawing at his own skin.

When he tires beyond all tolerance of lounging (who tires of _lounging,_ of all things, but he does), Loki paces at the containment barrier like a caged beast. A caged monster.

As he does so, back and forth and back and forth, he notices things.

For example: In the other cells prisoners curl up periodically - occasionally alone, more often piled together in groups of two or more - to sleep. They tend to do it all at once; it’s as if they're responding to a signal, a signal Loki cannot discern. Nothing perceptible changes, yet they do it every... day? Night? After a while, they yawn and stretch and roll apart and set about their daily duties of _boring Loki not quite close enough to death._

And then they do it all again. And again.

Also: Prisoners come and prisoners go, to what fate he cannot determine, but throughout all the shuffling Loki's remains the only one-occupant cell. Normally he likes being alone, but this is more than a bit much. As thoroughly as he usually treasures it, too, the silence - the utter lack of interaction - here eats at him.

Day after day after night after night. The lights never brighten, never dim. The food never changes, the guards never approach.

The prisoners still curl up to sleep; Loki still cannot detect their cue.

One night - is it a night? It's during curl-up time - a quiet disturbance breaks out in a cell across the hall. At first Loki ignores it, thinking it's just the start of yet another boring fight. Before long, though, the sounds are too obvious to ignore: These prisoners aren't fighting... they're fucking. It's not wrestling Loki hears, no, but the muffled groans and sweaty flesh-on-flesh slaps of sex.

When they finish, a few prisoners clap lazily. One hoots approval; others laugh.

The full gravity of his own situation crashes down upon Loki, its weight suffocating: These prisoners have each other. Whereas he will never again speak with another living being. Will never laugh with another, nor cry with another. He will not be granted release, except by his own hand and without privacy. He will meet no one. Learn nothing. Do nothing.

Rot away to nothing.

Be nothing.

Cease to matter.

Cease to be.

He lies awake that night (day?), mind and body in turmoil, as everyone else drifts quietly back to their slumber.

Come morning - is it morning? The other prisoners are awake - Loki makes a desperate play (a desperate _plea,_ even) for attention by returning the favor. Taking his turn: He steps right up to the containment barrier. Unlaces his breeches, frees his cock, and strokes himself to proud erection in full view of the other prisoners. Surveys the landscape through slitted eyes - up the corridor, down the corridor - by turns embarrassed and dismayed to find no one watching.

Ultimately he stops observing and gives in as his body takes over: shuts his eyes, imagines life _different_ , and jerks himself roughly to completion. It's a lot longer than it should be before semen splatters against the containment field with a quiet hiss. When he opens his eyes and looks around - panting harshly, legs shaking - he can't help but notice the drops have disappeared.

Into nothing.

And that still - after all that, after everything - not a single prisoner is watching. It's as if he isn't here at all.

He knows this happened - his cock is raw and chafed and smarting, he's sweating, his hand is a drippy mess. And yet no one has reacted. No one has moved. No one has made a sound. It's deeply, profoundly unsatisfying. He tucks himself away. Wipes his hand on the barrier, ignoring its hot-cold burn, just because he can.

And then he slams both palms full force against the barrier and screams at the top of his lungs.

No one reacts. No one as much as flinches. Not at the scream, not at his sobs afterwards. Not when he's rocking on the floor, breeches still unlaced, cradling his throbbing hands against his body.

Maybe they cannot hear or see him, then?

So. This is to be the rest of his life. No days, no nights. No interaction. No friends, no enemies. No contact. No hands gliding over his skin, no nails raking down his back in the throes of passion. No joy.

Nothing.

Nothing whatsoever, nothing at all.

That day (or is it night?), Loki curls on the floor crying for what feels like a very long time.

It's beyond awful, sure, but it's _something._


	14. Mimicry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Around the same time as Loss.
> 
> Being Odin doesn't turn out to be as fun as it sounds.
> 
>  
> 
> A little sexual content, but not much, and not as dark as the last few - it's still a little angsty (it did come out of _my_ head, after all), but it's more of a "way to think things through, braniac!" situation than a serious "ugh, poor Loki" one.

"Is the meat to your liking, my king?"

The server's round, kindly face is thoroughly scrunched, the very essence of concern. Loki starts to smile his best reassuring smile in response. Catches himself just in time. Nods curtly instead. "Yes. It's very good." He's doing something wrong, he just _knows_ it, but Odin isn't one to fish for hints and therefore he can't either.

This time, thank gods, he doesn't have to: The server relaxes, falling all over himself in an effort to simultaneously fawn and pour more wine. "Oh, I am so relieved. You- forgive me, sire, but you were not tucking into it with your usual vigor."

Ah. Right. Not for the first time Loki wishes he had spent a rather larger portion of his many tedious family mealtime experiences observing the Allfather instead of carefully studying his own plate.

Thor? Thor hunches over his food like it's trying to escape and then eats as though his fork is a shovel. Aping his brother would be - rather repulsive, yes, but - disgustingly easy, completely unchallenging. Loki has faced off across a table from his _charming_ elder sibling countless times, watching in horrified fascination as entire realms disappeared into that gaping maw.

_Run for your lives!_

Odin, though? No idea whatsoever.

Loki shuts his eyes for a moment - only a moment; wouldn't want to rattle the help! - and tries to picture his fa- _Odin_ eating. Does the man shovel? Hover? Dribble? Talk with his mouth open?

Does he use his own filthy utensils to skewer food from the serving platters?

Does he eat with his hands, fingers grease-smeared and sticky with sauce? Do bits of food fly from his mouth when he speaks?

Ugh. It's no use... the only mealtime tableau he can picture, no matter how hard he concentrates, is Odin delivering a stern and angry lecture over one of Loki's missteps or another.

Not that Thor's behavior didn't warrant the occasional harsh talk as well, but Loki didn't have to look at Odin then. He could - and did - watch his brother flounder instead, which was invariably much more entertaining.

But not helpful presently.

Following the mental equivalent of a big, dramatic sigh, Loki opens his eyes and digs back in with what he desperately hopes is sufficient enthusiasm. And in case it's not, he sends a tiny little tendril of seidr out across the hall. A pitcher topples from the serving stand with a loud wet crash, launching a small beery tidal wave across the floor.

The servant rushes to address the spill, apologizing profusely.

Thank gods. Loki wolfs down a few more bites, enough to take the barest edge off his hunger, and uses the relative cover of chaos to dart - as well as this form _can_ dart, that is - from the hall.

~

Once he's free of the servants, Loki hustles off to the royal counting room. This time of night Asgard's Treasury staff will be long gone, and no one else will dare disturb him here. Hustling isn't easy - Odin is a strong man, a warrior still, but Loki's own body is not used to moving this much sheer bulk. He's not used to being so broad, so muscled, so hairy, so _fat_. So burdened with saggy, baggy parts that flop about uncomfortably if he over-hurries.

It's exhausting. As soon as the door thuds shut, he collapses, winded, into the nearest chair.

~

Being Odin didn't sound this _complicated_ , not when the opportunity first presented itself. Loki'd been king once himself, of course, so he knew what the job involved - nothing particularly complicated there. He would glamour himself into the Allfather's form as needed and go about the day's business normally. Easily. Whenever he was out of the public eye - in other words, _often_ \- Loki would simply switch back to his own form and give himself a breather.

~

And that's exactly how it has played out.

With a few exceptions.

_Major exceptions._

For starters, and this rankles Loki far more than he will admit to any living soul, Odin - cantankerous, rude, smelly, arrogant, demanding old Odin - is a much more popular king than Loki ever was. Rather than just stopping by quickly to make urgent requests or drop off critical work, everyone (comes by with every conceivable nonsense excuse, and) wants to socialize. To spend time catching up. To kiss his pimply, wrinkly old ass. To, as the NYC mortals put it, schmooze. They - officials and subjects, landed gentry and commoners alike - show up in droves. It's constant. It's ceaseless.

Which calls to mind another - arguably _the most_ \- major exception: They expect him to _act like Odin._

Not like Loki.

Not like Loki badly playacting Odin.

No, they expect _Odin_ , acting like he always acts. And, as before, they spend a lot of time with him. Centuries. Millennia, in some cases. They know how he normally acts towards them, in many cases better than Loki does. And when he acts _a bit off,_ they notice. They notice and they worry.

All of which makes being Odin draining. Draining and rather terrifying, considering Loki’s flying blind here and has no one he can consult for guidance.

No one but Heimdall. Heimdall who is half likely to steer Loki 100% wrong out of spite.

~

As King Loki, too, Loki was his own agent. Himself. He could treat people as he saw fit. Delegate work as he saw fit. Eat what he wanted, when he wanted. Bathe himself, go to the baths, or walk around smelly... whatever he wanted.

He could summon the dancing girls, or send them away, all at a whim. He could watch them dance, if he wanted. Make them watch _him_ dance, if he wanted.

Make them pleasure one another, or themselves, or him. Or all of the above.

Make them leave and call for dancing boys instead.

Make everyone stay, and orchestrate an orgy. Make one stay - boy or girl or both or neither, depending on his own mood. Make her (him, them) - or _let_ them; this was one situation in which he actually did get a fair number of willing takers - pleasure him with hands and mouths and more.

Or storm out in a huff and pleasure himself, or bore of all of it and demand a lovely meat-and-cheese plate before retiring.

Whatever he wanted.

He could ride or hunt or spar or fuck or curl up in the vast library with a dusty old leather-bound tome. Or turn Odin's incredibly annoying tattling ravens into little winged pigs, then watch then bob about silly and useless.

~

As Odin, he only belatedly realizes, Loki cannot do the least bit of what he pleases. He has to do what Odin would do, as Odin would do it. As if he even knows how.

Does Odin delegate? To whom? What nature of work?

What does he say? Is he convivial or demanding?

How does Odin prefer to bathe?

Does he call for the dancing girls, now that mo- _Frigga_ is gone? Did he call for them anyway, throughout her lifetime?

Does he demand that they suck his wrinkly, shriveled old cock? When they do - if they do - does he like it? Does he _like_ it? Does mighty Gungnir stand proudly aloft between his sagging thighs, like the sad old thing did when Loki tested it out in private earlier, or has such pleasure long since fallen to the ravages of age?

Does Odin laugh it off ( _this old thing... not what it used to be!_ )? Does he rage and blame?

Does he have the girls executed? Loki thinks he himself might.

Right now, in fact, he might execute the next person he sees. A good beheading might just chee-

But no, he can't. He has to _act like Odin._

On and on and on it goes.

Eating, working, bathing, fucking. Endless.

And everything - _everything_ \- is like this. Overwhelming. Insane. Death by way of trivia overload. Loki's life is utterly consumed by the ridiculous minutiae of being Odin.

He slams a fist down on the nearest desk, growling in frustration.

Just this moment, it's feeling a bit hard to tell who's winning.


	15. Played

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after - not long after - Sight.
> 
> In which Heimdall (thinks he's being bad but, really, Loki is, and Heimdall) gets played.

_This is fast becoming the new normal,_ Heimdall thinks as he sits quietly on his cot. _It is not what I want, not objectively, not intellectually,_ \- and it's probably not what Loki wants either, not like Heimdall really cares - _but it is what I have and it seems it will have to do._

He shifts, trying to find a more comfortable position; his back is beginning to protest leaning up against the hard cell wall, and one of his feet is all pins-and-needles sleepy. In doing so he unwittingly jostles Loki - Loki who is curled shirtless against Heimdall's chest, face nestled into his shoulder, warm and heavy and for all intents and purposes asleep.

_Uh oh._ Heimdall holds his breath - waking Loki will mean listening to him complain, again, ( _still, more, endlessly_ ) and Heimdall is not in the mood to deal with his pretend king’s petty whining - but no... Loki just snuggles closer. It can’t be more than a minute or two before his breathing evens back out and it's looking very much as though this particular crisis has been averted.

Sleeping, Loki is cuddly and sleek and _touchable_. After a bit, Heimdall chances stroking a hand gently up and down Loki's back. The false king is eating better now; he's still thinner than he should be, but he's more muscle and less bone and a little meat on that frame just makes him feel all the nicer. It's easier to look past the scars. Asleep here on the cot, on Heimdall, Loki is pretty and soft. And loathe as he may be to admit it - and Heimdall is, oh, yes he is - he's finding his hands starting to positively _itch_ for this when Loki isn't here.

When Loki is off playing Odin.

In every sense of the word.

But just now Loki is sleeping, dead weight against his front, and Heimdall is not going to think about Odin. Nor about the sworn vows of fealty that keep him imprisoned here.

Not much, at least.

_Is letting the prince nap here on me yet more treason, when he cannot bear to be alone?_ Probably, Heimdall concludes ruefully. Odin drives a hard, hard bargain.

Enough of that. He lets his mind wander, increasingly conscious of the _very appealing body_ under his own hands.

_I thought I was past this, beyond this, above this_ Heimdall muses. _I thought my flesh had grown accustomed - had reconciled itself - to a Guardian's solitary life._ It's reasonable in theory. But in practice it seems his flesh had just lain waiting. Not accepted its sad, lonely fate after all. Because Loki's cozy, pliant body under Heimdall's hands once - _once_ , and just to rub the play-acting king’s aching back - proved well more than enough to reignite fires Heimdall had thought to be long since doused forever.

Loki stirs in his sleep, twisting, resettling. Brings one pale shoulder up, quite close to Heimdall's face. Throws a long, bare arm over Heimdall's shoulder, clunking a hand hard against the cell’s unforgiving wall.

Heimdall holds his breath again - that _has_ to have hurt.

Nothing. Loki's shoulder is still _right there_.

_Whew,_ Heimdall thinks, when he knows he should be thinking _dammit_.

Speaking of shoulds, oh, he shouldn't. _Shouldn't_. Heimdall closes his eyes, inhales deeply... then gently lowers his mouth to Loki's skin. Rests his lips there, feeling his own heart pounding.

It's not a kiss, because he doesn't. They don't. This - this uneasy _whatever it is_ they've established between themselves - is not about things like _kisses_. It’s not about _that_. It isn't. Loki needs a place to be himself. Heimdall is a captive audience.

_A captive audience who used to live to see, but who evidently now flat-out lives to touch. To touch Loki._

_It's not like there are other choices, after all,_ he reminds himself by way of self-reassurance. But, still.

And, sure enough, Heimdall shouldn't have. Because from the very moment his lips touch Loki's skin, he - _no, not him; his body_ \- wants more.

His heart feels like it's about to pound right out of his chest. Like Loki should be jarred awake by the noise, by the shaking. But Loki isn't. Heimdall lets his lips part - slightly, slowly, breathing carefully against Loki’s skin - and touches the very tip of his tongue to the warm lean shoulder beneath.

Oh, _oh_.

This time Loki does move, but it's only to fit himself more closely to the contours of Heimdall's body.

And to hum quietly, so quietly Heimdall can really only sense it as a low rumble against his own chest. So quietly it may not have existed at all.

_I need to stop this while I still can,_ Heimdall reminds himself sternly. Reluctantly he lifts his mouth from Loki's skin and straightens, letting his head thud back against the wall. He rests against the hard surface like that a long while, eyes closed, breathing in Loki's warm scent and petting long, slow strokes up and down Loki's naked back.

~

This feels _good_. So, so good. He could lie here all night, snuggled up like this. Could, can, may. Loki shifts a little against Heimdall's chest, breathing slow and even.

Yes, this is working out nicely. Better than expected, really.

Loki grins, sharp and knowing and confident Heimdall won't see.


	16. Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING: This one is fairly dark, with some Loki whomp. It involves references to past torture, and is a little on the gross side.**  
>   
> 
> Takes place after Relief and probably after Nothing, in the dungeons.
> 
> Too much time alone in a cell is enough to give a person nightmares.

_What is that for?" Loki’s voice sounds odd to his own ears, hollow and echoing. "That," he gestures with his chin – he’s tightly bound; it’s pretty much the only part of his body that's free to move just now - towards a syringe of pale, cloudy liquid the Chitauri jailer holds aloft. His – its? - six-fingered paws are surprisingly nimble; in next to no time the syringe is prepped and ready and in Loki's neck with a sharp jab._

_"It intensifies sensation," the creature – the monster with the needle - says. Even given the Allspeak its speech is littered with insect-like clicks and glottal stops. Loki struggles to make sense of it, not even close to sure he's succeeding._

_"But why?" Gods. He can't think. Whatever the stuff may do to sensation, it certainly does nothing useful to reasoning. Loki's mind feels heavy. Slow. Sludgy. Like its gears are turning - barely, at that - in a bath of thick, filthy oil. There's something here he needs to understand - he knows it, with complete and utter certainty, but it's just beyond his mental grasp. "Why," he repeats, and the single syllable booms out ridiculously loudly. He winces, squeezing his eyes tight closed against his suddenly-too-bright surroundings._

_Surroundings which were dark stone walls only moments ago._

_The creature's laugh is like war-gun fire; its clicking speech like flaming arrows. "Saves me from straining my arm," it clatters._

_An ear-splitting whistle - an asteroid flying through the tiny world's atmosphere - and then a deafening crash. The asteroid, impossibly, strikes right here - high on Loki's back, across one shoulder blade - and splits him clean in two._

_His ears ring. The pain is beyond horrific. Blazing-hot streams of lava pour from his eyes and nose. He chokes on it, then retches. Feels his gullet turn itself inside out and rip free._

_How is dying taking so LONG?_

_Or perhaps, unbelievably, he isn't yet dying after all. More laughter-gunfire, more click-arrows. More terrible pain. "See? This way" - the creature laughs again, harsh and grating - "I can whip you as long as it takes and not even break a sweat."_

_As long as it takes is, evidently, longer than HE can take. After but a few more strikes, just as the blood is starting to run down his wrecked back like rivers of boiling fat, Loki's mind fractures and all he can do is-_

-scream. Loki wakes, screaming bloody murder, to the sound of a guard shouting over him: "Hey, keep it down already. You're not the only prisoner here, Loki. Show a little restraint for once in your spoiled royal life."

Restraint. Restraints. RESTRAINTS!! Loki opens his eyes and starts violently.

He's in Asgard. In Odin's dungeon, in his nice white cell.

Clothed. Clean. Unharmed.

The tears, it seems, are real.

~

The dreams started shortly after his sentencing. They are vivid and horrible: the Void. The Chitauri. Occasionally something smaller: That Midgard beast - Banner, in his other form - throwing him about like a broken toy. His own hands burning against the containment field. That one hate-filled Einherji beating him, on his first night here.

Loki initially thought the first dream a fluke, a random bit of misery. If only. Over time they have become more and more regular, more and more frequent, until he is fast becoming terrified of closing his eyes.

~

He sits and reads - something neutral, pleasant; nothing to jog his unconscious into puking up more horror. He fights to stay awake as long as he can, in hopes that - when he loses the battle and dozes off - he will be too exhausted to dream. He puts up a valiant-

_-struggle, slamming one of the ugly gray creatures against a rock outcropping hard enough to knock it senseless, but it's no use. Its fellow soldiers swarm Loki. Pull him down. Force a rough hood over his head, strap his wrists behind his back. He doesn't even feel the blow that fells him._

_Pain. Pain, pain. Darkness. Pain._

_He's kneeling - unclothed as best he can tell… though the pain is a dull roar, enough that it’s hard to be sure of anything - on a hard, damp surface. Loki’s ankles are bound and his wrists, still caught behind him, have been tied off to something uncomfortably high above. He shifts, hoping to get his bound feet back under him, but his shoulders are stretched just shy of failure and the resulting jolt of pain stops him cold._

_Laughter._

_The thing is so hot it feels bitter, icy, frigid; he jumps despite his best intentions. Something tears, audibly, in his left shoulder. Loki vomits, then guts out a raw howl. The pain is all-consuming - he doesn't even realize he's been branded until the smell of cooked flesh works its way into the hood._

_He vomits again. Screams until his voice is just a raspy hiss._

_When they talk to him, their voices muffled by the hood and by the roaring in his own ears, one of them sounds like-_

"-Odin if you keep this up, and you know how he hates to be disturbed."

Loki blinks. Blinks again, dazed. Disoriented. Dizzy

"Come now, you have not touched your dinner." The guard points to a nearby table.

Loki drops his book. Turns, too rattled to disobey, and gets a whiff of grilled meat. It catches him completely unprepared, utterly without warning; his stomach rolls, his mouth fills.

He spits off to the side. Gags again. Drops to all fours on the cell floor, body wracked with increasingly-dry heaves.

"Are you unwell, sir?" The guard sounds flustered. "Should I fetch a healer?"

Loki spits again. Kneels up, rocks back onto his heels. Wipes eyes and nose ineffectually with the back of a hand. "I'm fine," he rasps, even though he isn't. 

No, he's going fucking crazy. But what can a healer do for that?

It's not like the healer will agree to kill him, after all.

Pity.


	17. Catch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place between Mimicry and Solitary.
> 
> There are only so many pigeons to eat in London.

"Take me through this again, my son, from the beginning. I am still not sure I follow your reasoning." Loki-cum-Odin sits on the throne, Gungnir in hand, concentrating hard on not sprawling lazily. Unlike most of the king’s other visitors, servants and commoners and officials alike, Thor has spent a lifetime observing Loki. Exactly how closely, Loki cannot know - he'd have thought somewhere between _not closely_ and _Loki? Loki who?_ , but Thor has proven everyone (him included) wrong quite a bit of late and Loki can't take the chance of being caught out. Where other may notice that Odin _seems a bit off,_ it's really only Thor who could potentially notice that Odin _seems a bit Loki_.

Well, Thor and Heimdall... but Heimdall has been dealt with and does not pose a threat.

 _Does not pose the same threat,_ Loki reminds himself. It's never wise to take the Guardian lightly.

Oh, right, Thor is blathering on.

"-doing a significant amount of damage and frightening the people of London, so S.H.I.E.L.D. - that's the official agency whose people helped contain Loki on Midgard – has sent agents and removed the creature to a secure facility." Thor pauses, evidently waiting for acknowledgment before proceeding.

 _Contain Loki._ Odin would be okay with that, certainly, so Loki carefully doesn't react. He's not quite certain how he feels about it anyway.

"And this is a problem because your mortal-" - Loki uses the phrase at least partly to see whether Thor will bristle or roll over and take it. He's a bit put out when Thor carries on speaking without so much as a wince, but of course it’s something Odin wouldn't even notice. Loki has to school his own expression rigorously. Doing so is almost physically painful.

"-is worried that it will come to harm, father. Jane and her colleagues feel that, because the creature came to be on Midgard through no fault of its own, it should be returned unharmed to its home realm. To-"

"Jotunheim, yes. You told me." It's another attempt at needling Thor - Thor who is endlessly frustrated when Loki is illogical, self-contradictory, and difficult - but of course it falls flat. Loki sighs. It's appropriate for Odin to sigh here, even though Loki's own reasons are rather different. "And this is deemed your problem because the Jotun beast is on Midgard thanks to you."

Loki isn't asking, he's telling.

Thor takes the non-existent invitation, though, and hastens to elaborate: "Yes, father. When Malekith and I fought, before Jane and her colleagues helped put an end to the Convergence, we fell onto Jotunheim. We startled this creature; it chased us out onto thin ice and fell. We fell with it; it must have come to Midgard through a portal." Thor looks at the floor, scuffing one big boot toe like a giant child. "And I'm told it fought heroically for the side of good - Darcy, who is a friend of Jane’s, says it killed a dark elf."

Privately, Loki suspects the huge, terrified thing was simply attacking anything in its path and would just as cheerfully have eaten Darcy. Let Thor's mortals have their cutesy reasoning, though - it's likely not something Odin would have wasted time discussing. "And what would you and your collection of well-intentioned mortals have me do with the creature?"

"Relocate it back to Jotunheim, father. With Loki- dead" - well, that delicate pause is gratifying, at least - "and Heimdall relieved of his duties, only you are able to see the beast safely home."

Thor goes on to offer up pleading excuses ("It's only because of this that I've troubled you with such a small thing.") but Loki is only half-listening.

_See the beast safely home._

_Home._

_Jotunheim._

_Home._

There's a certain lure to it, Loki can't deny. Or acknowledge, as this would be strictly business - dull logistics, troubling politics - for Odin. So, despite the fact the idea of going back to Jotunheim is both fascinating and terrifying, Loki carefully keeps his tone flat. Bored. Close to annoyed. "Very well, I shall have done. Is the creature somewhere I can access it it? I do not wish to make trouble with Midgard, not after the work you and - S.H.I.E.L.D, is it? - just put into getting everything back under control, by needlessly damaging an official facility."

At Loki-Odin’s capitulation Thor visibly relaxes, which is perhaps the most offensive thing that's happened so far. If it wasn’t for how he cannot blow his cover, Loki would explode. Instead, he clenches his teeth and waits silently for his brother to speak. _Thor, if you slobber all over me with gratitude, so help me-..._

Fortunately for the continued survival of those residing throughout the Nine, Thor keeps a similar lid on his own relief: "It is not, but I can change that. When do you need it ready?"

 _What, are you going to march in and offer to take it for a walk, you big dolt,_ Loki thinks, asking instead "You have a plan to move it, then?"

Thor smiles; his biggest sunny, self-congratulatory smile, the one that makes Loki see red. "I have friends there, father. They will do as I ask."

 _Of COURSE they will._ Loki counts to 250 inside his head; it takes that long before he can speak normally. “Good. Have it in place in four Midgard hours, and stay with it so that I may locate it easily. I will bring it to the gatehouse, and then have it transferred back to Jotunheim” (Odin would not accompany a mere beast on such a trivial mission, of course, if he were actually here orchestrating it). “Do you know more exactly from whence it came?”

This time, Thor does wince. Apparently Loki is not alone in carrying certain invisible scars. “Somewhere solitary. We- we saw no one.” He dips his head in something close to deference. “Thank you father, for your help in this. I will go see to it now.”

And just like that he turns and is gone, striding briskly out of the hall.

Once Thor has disappeared from view and and he’s yet again alone, Loki spends a long time sitting on the throne and staring off into nothingness.

Jotunheim.

It’s long past time he paid a visit; long past time he went home.


	18. Conflict

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place while Loki is in jail and Thor is out campaigning to regain order across the Nine... so, sometime after Nothing.
> 
> As much as Thor wants to enjoy his role - it's his favorite role, after all - life is not the same.

No one, least of all Thor, could argue; it sounded like the perfect adventure when it was first presented: Spend a year, maybe a little more, realm-hopping. Fight. Fight righteously, fight gloriously. Sleep in tents, drink in quantity. Perhaps rut, if the time was right and the company was right; if not, sing ballads of others' rutting. Tell stories, make stories. Revel in the joy living on the blade's edge - the hammer's face – would bring. Live fast, live wild. Live stories.

Live the legends of old, be the legends of the future.

Endure no dull politics, no endless official functions, no day-to-day kingdom-running - just the good things, in the great places, with none other than his best friends in all the Nine at his side. The awesome and triumphant return of the Mighty Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three.

And then at the end, when they'd proved themselves unstoppable, the merry company would reappear before all of Asgard in shining, glorious victory. Odin would savor his well-earned retirement; Thor would have his long-awaited kingdom. Precious Asgard. Gungnir. The love and respect of Asgard's mighty people. And, yes, the tedium... but even the best plans in all the realms are imperfect, after all.

It is everything Thor has ever wanted, since- well, as far back as he can remember, practically gift-wrapped and set smiling in his outstretched hands.

~

At first, just as expected, the entire campaign experience actually _is_ quite enjoyable. Thor has missed seeing his Aesir friends, perhaps more than he realized. While fighting alongside the Son of Coul, the Man of Iron, and their Avenger colleagues on Midgard had certainly proved engaging, it wasn't the same somehow. And though he still speaks regularly of her with Heimdall and enjoys keeping up with her progress, too, he's been apart from the Lady Jane long enough now that the sharp sting of loss has all but faded. More than anything, it seems, he has especially missed being himself.

Being Thor, God of Thunder: Hurling his stein to the floor with a resounding crash and a cheerful bellow ( _ANOTHER!!_ ) when he's ready for more hearty drink. Wielding Mjolnir with deceptive ease, whirling her this way and that with his full strength behind her, wholly confident of both the surety of his aim and the nobility of his cause. Simply being boisterous and massive and active... and knowing that's exactly what passes for _excellent_ here at home.

It's not that Thor minds standing out, not at all. He stands out by nature. But - though he's even a bit surprised himself to realize it initially - sometimes it's nice not to be a True And Amazing Spectacle every minute of every day.

Sif, Fandral, and Volstagg, for their part, seem nothing but pleased to see the old gang reunited. Even gruff Hogan is fractionally more cheerful than Thor can remember him ever being during campaigns past; in fact, Thor's positive that grim face has shown hints of a smile on fully four occasions since the enforcement raids began.

They've needed this, for a long time. For a kingdom built on a foundation of war, there truly (shamefully, maybe, but truly all the same) is such a thing as _too much peace_.

And Thor truly does miss being his true self, more than anything. _Anything._

~

Before long, though, Thor finds himself unable to shake the nagging sense that _something is missing_.

It's nearly immediately that he notices, really; it just takes him a long while to admit to himself that battle's simply not fulfilling him like it once did.

It takes quite a lot longer for him to even begin to be willing to contemplate the most likely reason _why._

Once he does let himself think about it, Thor has to face an unpleasant truth: The little dark shadow hovering over his grand warring-cum-peacemaking adventure is actually the absence of his usual little dark shadow.

~

Thor does not _want_ this to be about Loki, he well and truly doesn't. He is angry with Loki and wants very, very much to enjoy being rid of him. Even before Jotunheim Loki managed to be a thorn in Thor's side at every opportunity; second-judging tactics, disturbing order, bucking authority, aggravating family, alienating friends. Generally being a pain in the ass, as the Man of Iron would put it. Loki bickers, Loki snarks, Loki nit-picks, Loki whines.

Loki lies.

Loki - captive in the dungeons - leaves a hole in Thor's life, a hole it seems nothing can fill.

Loki is a traitor. A murderer. A cruel despot, imprisoned for life for his crimes.

He is Thor's baby brother.

He is no one's brother.

Loki be damned; Thor's brother is dead.

~

The harder Thor slams the lid down on his feelings - and the more pressure he applies by way of keeping that lid in place - the more those feelings bubble and simmer and annoy him.

Being angry with Loki is easy. Loki fought Thor rather than simply ask for help. When he was offered help despite not asking, Loki let go instead of swallowing his vain pride and accepting it. When next they met, instead of cheering their reunion Loki blamed Thor for making him let go... and then spurned his brother for being foolishly sentimental.

So: Yes, Thor has cast aside sentiment. Has cast aside Loki. Thor has no brother. Needs no brother. Misses no brother.

_Loves no brother._

Wastes no energy caring for the caged Jotun beast that hates his very existence.

And yet: There is a Loki-sized, Loki-shaped, Loki-flavored hole in Thor's world... and everything Thor casts into that hole echoes away into the Void. Nothing can even begin to fill it, not this hole.

Not drink, not war, not Jane, not friends. Not mother, nor father.

Not Asgard.

Only Loki.

Loki is dead. Loki is dead to Thor. Loki is in the dungeons where he belongs, probably not paying the least penance for crimes Thor _did not cause him to commit._

~

Try as he might to convince himself otherwise, there's ultimately nothing to be done for it; a pall hangs over Thor's happiness.

He blames Loki.

It doesn't help at all.


	19. Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Played.
> 
> In which Loki and Heimdall spin in a circle until someone falls.
> 
> This one got longer than it should have. Oops?

The soup is too hot to eat quickly. Heimdall blows carefully on a steaming spoonful; he's sprawled half-sitting on his cot, shirt off, and any splashing is going to be painful. In hindsight, this particular meal would have been safer tackled at the table. Fully clothed.

Heimdall is fast tiring of taking the safer path.

He blows on his soup and thinks about sitting here a few - is it days? He can sense the turning of the universe about Midgard, even here in this cell, but he hasn't been paying it as much mind as he probably should - ago holding Loki in his arms. About the way Loki's slender torso felt - all soft skin and long, lean muscle... and bone, still far more bone than there should be.

About the even-nicer way Loki's body would feel against his own if they were _both_ clad only in their leggings. Or if they were clad in nothing at all.

_Stop._ Nice as the body in question may be - to touch, to smell, to taste... _mm_ \- it still has _Loki_ inside in it. And that- that poses a problem. Several problems, really.

Heimdall eats his spoonful of soup, then carefully scoops up another. Watches, teetering between amused and revolted, as something grayish and gelatinous slides back into the bowl with a wet plop.

He drops the spoonful of soup back into the bowl and prods the grey lump tentatively. At least it's dead. Not recently, though, by the looks of it. He heaves a big sigh and sets the bowl aside. No matter how far his mind wanders, the food here won't let him forget - he is incarcerated. A prisoner, in solitary confinement.

Solitary. Loki. Problems. Heimdall closes his eyes and lets his _sight_ drift to where Odin (the real Odin; the false one is just wrapping up a luncheon with a Nornheim delegation, the lavish spread presumably free of grayish mystery meat) lies sleeping. The old king could sleep for years; he could also wake without warning and smite them both wherever they might lie. Lie together, warm limbs intertwined and wet mouths hungr-... _Stop._

Heimdall pointedly reminds himself he doesn't like Loki. Loki is a traitor. Loki tried to kill him, for Hel's sake.

Loki is crazy. Heimdall does not need more crazy in his life.

At that, he laughs outright. _Because such a life he has these days, after all._ Not to mention Loki is- well, he's here - often here, often temptingly here - already. Regardless. Clearly denying himself is not sparing Heimdall any crazy.

No, Heimdall grudgingly admits, and reminding himself does not seem to be working either. In the end he's not sure what exactly the hitch is - his body fighting to wrest control away from his rational mind, or a legitimate shift of opinion - but it's getting harder and harder to view Loki with objectivity and not pity.

Something about the prince's having to come here to this cell for comfort - reduced to seeking out the one person from whom he's spent most of his long life carefully hiding - tugs at Heimdall.

And knowing Loki may well be playing the whole situation to his own advantage - should strengthen his flagging resolve, yes, but - just leaves Heimdall all the sadder. Not only is the poor creature reduced to seeking solace here, from someone he likely would never have sought out otherwise, but he can't even admit his needs and must therefore resort to getting them met via trickery.

Not for the first time, Heimdall has to concede that thinking about this is making his own situation worse, not better. He should be disgusted. Regretful. Afraid, because what lies ahead simply cannot but go badly. End badly.

He's not. He’s none of those things, really. Not, at least, to any useful degree.

Which is why some minutes later, when he hears the hiss of the locks releasing, Heimdall simply hauls himself to his feet as-is... without even bothering to pretend he's pulling his shirt back on.

Not-Odin dissolves quickly into Loki, hands shoved deep in the pockets of loose pants and a vast, slouchy linen tunic hanging artfully off one pale shoulder. He crosses to the table but does not sit. Everything about his manner is just this side of manic.

Heimdall crosses his arms and puts on his best Guardian expression. "Why are you here?"

If Loki finds him intimidating - and he'd be wise to do so, even now - he gives no sign. He looks Heimdall up and down; expression speculative, eyes lingering on the broad planes of his naked torso.

Heimdall waits.

Loki's mouth quirks. "Me? I was here to talk, but I must confess: Your plan looks better."

Heimdall doesn't smile. With this too-awaited moment upon him he's suddenly, overwhelmingly uncertain as to what he wants. He opts to redirect: "My plan? My plan was to eat dinner, until I found it- occupied." When Loki's brows furrow in clear confusion, Heimdall twists to fetch the bowl. Holds it out, prodding. "Care to name it?"

Loki grimaces, then laughs. "I think that used to live in _my_ cell. I- I'm sorry? I'll talk to the cooks - we can't have you starving." He takes the bowl from Heimdall's hands and sets it on the table. "Have you had enough? Will you succumb to hunger before I finish talking?"

Heimdall snorts. "If anyone could talk that long, Loki, I have no doubt it would be you. Sit." He gestures broadly: let Loki choose between the cot and the chairs. It won't salve his own conscience later, but for now he can still pretend it might.

Loki doesn't sit, though. Instead, he takes a small step closer; he's well into Heimdall's space. At such close range it's impossible not to notice he smells _good_... and is still wound tight.

Heimdall could take a corresponding step back. Could and should. But he's tired of this game. "You were not asleep, the last time you were here," he points out quietly instead. Loki is _so close_ \- another step and they'd be pressed tight together.

"You knew." Loki dips his head, looking down and away.

Heimdall takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly, slowly. "I do now." He falls back on the false comfort of habit: "Why are you here," he asks again, this time softly.

And waits.

And waits.

"I'm so lonely," Loki tells the table, voice pitched just above a whisper. Something in his tone _hurts_ to hear.

Heimdall knows who this is. Knows he could yet again be getting played. He reaches up and gently catches Loki's chin. Steers upwards. "Look me in the eye, Loki, and say it again."

"I'm here because I'm lonely." Loki's eyes are big, their lashes wet. A single tear trails down one cheek.

Heimdall's done for. If there was ever any question, there isn't now. He wipes the tear away with his thumb. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Loki pulls his face free of Heimdall's hand and shakes his head, eyes downcast.

"You tried to kill me once, Loki.” Heimdall presses on, done for or not. “How do I know you won't again, if I let you close?" Heimdall lets his hand float down onto Loki's bare shoulder. Feels Loki shaking.

"You don't." He finally looks at Heimdall of his own volition. "But I didn't. Didn't try to kill you," Loki volunteers as Heimdall frowns. "I just did what I had to do to stop you. Surely you can understand; you, Odin's tool." Loki's face carries more than a hint of its old stubborn challenge. And of deep, old pain.

Heimdall waits.

"You could see me on the Chitauri world, after all." Loki watches Heimdall carefully, eyes welling, jaw clenched.

He's right, this time. Heimdall nods.

Loki dips his own head in return. "So perhaps, in this one thing, we are close enough to even?"

He's right again.

And oh-so-very-close, again. Warm, tear-streaked. Hurting.

Still. Yet again, Heimdall waits, only concession to _need_ the thumb working slow, dragging circles about the hollow of Loki's throat.

Loki swallows. Licks his lips. "Please?"

It’s a simple, broken plea and it hangs between them as Heimdall steps to the very edge of the highest cliff. He thinks perhaps he has finally waited long enough.

He fists a hand in Loki's hair and pulls, exposing the sinuous curve of neck to his own mouth.

Pulls the prince closer, as close as he can.

He's done with waiting and done with gentleness; his teeth meet Loki's skin roughly, with enough force to turn Loki's exhale to a pained cry.

In return Loki's nails rake down his bare back.

_Close enough to even._ Heimdall shudders.


	20. Pastimes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This spans some dungeon time but ends late in Loki's incarceration, so probably after both Nothing and Dreams.
> 
> Frigga comes to visit, Loki's not ready.

It's not a very interesting book – just an instructional text; a rather dry history of ancient Midgard... or, at least, what passes for _ancient_ on Midgard - and he's already read it often enough to have long since committed it to memory. Still, it passes the time more effectively than does just sitting here doing nothing.

The illustrations of Thor and Odin actually make bits of it almost fun.

Loki carefully avoids the pictures of himself as a pregnant horse. Recently he's caught himself wondering, on more than one occasion, if being a pregnant horse would be better than being stuck here in captivity and that worries him.

The last thing he needs to do is lose his mind in here.

~

When the boredom gets really bad and he feels his sanity starting to fray around the edges, Loki tests simple spells. He's been keeping a log, hidden from normal sight; a detailed tracking of what he can and cannot do, a mapping of the boundaries of what little power he's still allowed:

He can heal himself, within reason (he's slowly working himself up to something worth real healing, but has found that he's enjoying doing so and this worries him too). He can cast glamours, both upon himself and upon his surroundings (he actually tested that particular seidr quite early on; it lets him experiment with some of his other capabilities, like healing, and yet not attract unwelcome attention). 

He has enough raw power to smash things in fits of emotion (he tested that one accidentally, his first day here, and has had it happen a few times subsequently - regulating his feelings is proving quite challenging, what with so much time to do nothing but think, and it seems he’s losing his ability to hide things now that he has no one from which to hide them).

On the other hand, he doesn't seem to be able to conjure objects; he can reassemble existing items, at the expense of considerably more energy than normal, but can't make anything new from scratch. Or from parts; he cannot, for example, graft a table leg onto a chair.

He also can't successfully transmute anything. Which, considering the food here, is truly unfortunate.

The more closely he approaches the containment barrier securing the open sides of his cell, the less power he can access. If he touches the barrier, the contact leaves no physical wound or scar but hurts for days... burning, stinging pain that can't be healed away. Trying to cast through the barrier turns out to be a major mistake... not only does doing so hurt, and fail, but his seidr takes hours or more to recover.

Meaning that - for the entire recovery period, during which he’s terrified he’s lost his power forever - he can't cast at all.

Odin, for all his faults, is no fool.

Eventually even seidr comes to bore Loki, in large part because none of the usual devious, entertaining options remain at his disposal. He makes himself practice anyway, running through basic drills after each meal; if he somehow escapes, it won't do to be rusty and slow.

Nothing about that approach – smart though it may be - breaks the tedium, though. Nothing.

~

For a bit, Loki tries embracing the situation. If he's going to be bored, he will be grandly, dramatically bored. He lies on his bed for what has to be hours at a stretch, staring off into space and blanking his mind as much as he possibly can. Sometimes he plays catch with whatever small trinket comes readily to hand, flipping the thing into the air over and over like a cat with a helpless rodent; other times he just pouts and sighs and glories in the utter emptiness of it all.

Ultimately, this approach fares no better than its forerunners: His life _is_ utterly empty, and there is precious little cause for celebration there.

~

And then, finally – in one of those boring books - he discovers something _fun_.

While he cannot make something from nothing, he _can_ make _someone_ from nothing. It's an obscure bit of spellwork, nothing he's had occasion to try before, and it lets him generate lifelike, animate shades. These have neither mass nor solid form - they are literally just shades - but focusing solely on their shortcomings hardly does Loki's creations justice. They can speak and move and emote, all quite eloquently, and they are entirely under his control.

Meaning he can argue with them to his heart's content, on any subject he so wishes, and they will argue back with unbridled enthusiasm.

_And they will lose._

Always lose.

Each time, every time.

Loki's first few attempts, before he fully grasps the true beauty of the game, are random strangers. They make fine sport, sure, but something about debating them isn't completely satisfying.

That, and it all feels a little too much like talking to himself all day, the idea of which - for pleasure! - is yet another worrisome thing.

So he does a little experimenting and, after a few aborted failures, conjures himself a perfectly respectable facsimile of Odin.

Now _this? This_ is good fun. Really, there is everything to like about an Allfather who blusters and protests and threatens and shouts... and loses every argument. Well, except for a few minor ones Loki lets the Odin-shade win, just to break things up before they can become monotonous.

He doesn't limit himself to Odin, of course, though the king remains truly Loki's favorite. Over time he lectures Fandral for being a pompous ass, trades barbs with Sif for thinking him unworthy, and tongue-lashes Heimdall for pledging loyalty unwisely.

He even brings forth the occasional Thor, although those debates aren't much different than their in-the-flesh predecessors and that strips away some of the enjoyment.

But it's usually Odin, and always entertaining.

Loki carefully never conjures Frigga. Never. Not so much as once.

~

Which is why he is utterly shocked (and most dismayed) to find her standing before him.

He wants very much to tell her he loves her, but Loki is in full-on fighting mode and cannot for the life of himself find the switch that shuts it off. He stands before her, speechless and shaking. Sadly, when he finally finds his tongue, what rolls off the end of it with practiced ease is awful. Hateful. "Odin continues to bring me new friends. How thoughtful," he sneers, voice dripping sarcasm.

Frigga looks far, far less startled than Loki could have imagined, and that only makes the situation worse. "The books I sent,” – unlike his, her manner remains calm – “do they not interest you?"

That hurts. It's as though she has been here in his cell - in his _mind_ \- watching his slow slide into mad oblivion. Loki loathes the very idea; he's determined to punish her for it. "Is that how I am to while away eternity,” he grates. “Reading?"

She tries gamely to steer the conversation back to safer ground, reminding him how she's only ever tried to help, but Loki's temper has gotten completely away from him and refuses to be reined back in. "Have you," he asks, voice rising. "Does _Odin_ share your concern? Does _Thor?_ It must be so inconvenient, them asking after me day and night."

That, finally, hits home. Frigga's eyes flash. "You know full well it was your actions that brought you here," she snaps.

He wins these arguments. All of them. " _My_ actions? I was merely giving truth to the lie that I’ve been fed my entire life: That I was born to be a king."

Every one a win. And yet: "A king," Frigga scoffs. "A true king admits his faults. What of the lives you took on Midgard?"

He grasps at the nearest straw, hoping against hope that it will take his weight. "A mere handful compared to the number that Odin has taken himself." This is true, after all.

But Frigga yields no ground, and he feels himself starting to fall. "Loki, your father-," she starts in angrily.

Loki can't. This is everything he's been trying to avoid. _Please stop!_ , he wants to plead... but shouts "He's NOT MY FATHER!" in Frigga's face instead.

_Why? WHY? Why are you here? I did not want to fight you. I never wanted to fight you. I love you._

Frigga's expression shifts. Loki has seen this face before. Many times, when he was being a stubborn, difficult child and she'd managed to back him into a corner. And sure enough - "Then am I not your mother?" - she has.

All his anger sluices away, replaced by crushing, suffocating self-loathing. He wants desperately to lie - to _keep_ lying - but can't manage it. "You’re not," he mutters, defeated.

Frigga hums. She doesn't look victorious; just pitying, which is far, far worse. "Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself."

When Loki forgets himself entirely and tries to touch her, thinking she must be real because he would never have created a thing like this, she disappears.

~

And that's the end of it, forever. Loki never dares cast that spell again.


	21. Learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Loss, probably during Mimicry.
> 
> Jane tries to fix things.
> 
>  
> 
> This is what passes for _sweet_ in Ryn!world (where any attempts at fluff go the way of _The Velveteen Rabbit_ ). As in, the angst is still there but doesn't drag down into something awful at the end.
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow US residents. :)

Jane huffs in frustration. This conversation has been going in circles for days now, starting not long after Thor'd arrived back on Midgard in a dramatic light-show outside the windows of her London flat, and for all her smarts she is having a terrible time finding a way to stop it.

She's been doing her best - really! - to be sympathetic and patient. Thor's been through a lot in the past few days and has just had his life irrevocably altered; she understands he's got a huge adjustment in front of him, even when you correct the _change_ equation for a given value of _godlike alien being._

She gets that. She really does.

But his insistence on picking this one particular fight - with her of all people - is, frankly, driving her batty. _And_ giving her a terrible headache, which does nothing good for her sympathy OR her patience.

She shuts her eyes as tightly as she can, digging both thumbs into her throbbing temples. Sighs. "For the literal thousandth time, Thor, I do not hate your brother. He saved both our lives, for which I am very grateful." Jane sighs again. "And I know you are very sad. But- but you have to cut me a break here. I'm not going to be bawling my eyes out over the guy - I'm not a bawler, for starters," although truthfully she's feeling like she may well become one if this drags on much longer, "and I- well, I barely knew him. Thor, you have to remember I really only saw Loki through other people... and, well, some of them did have good reason to judge him a little harshly."

When Thor doesn't reply, Jane reluctantly opens her eyes. He stands by the window, his back to her, arms crossed. Even his cape manages to look stubborn somehow. _Aargh!_ This is why Jane does not _do_ relationships - she expects people to behave rationally and is at a complete loss when they do not. _Think, Jane._ There has to be a way out. _Think._

Ah. Yes. Brilliant, if she may say so herself.

"Why don't _you_ tell me about him, Thor? Surely of everyone you knew him best."

She watches carefully; thank goodness, the stiff line of his shoulders shifts a little.

After a long (and welcome, really!) silence, it's Thor's turn to sigh. "Yours is a fair request, Jane. I just- I do not know where to begin."

At long last his anger seems to be on the verge of dissipating... and not a moment too soon, as she is beyond tired of this particular dispute. She crosses behind him, heading for the small stove. "Well, let's have some tea and you can start at the beginning."

~

They curl up together on the couch - as much as Thor can curl, in light armor, on Midgard-sized furniture; he sprawls, Jane leans against his side - and sip their steaming tea in blissful silence.

If nothing else, it's a break from arguing. Jane's warming to her own idea, though - seeing Loki through Thor's eyes can only be fascinating and she does love a good bit of fascination. In the end, she nudges gently: "So, what's the first thing you remember?"

"Mother telling me" – he answers at once; Jane can hear the smile in his voice, and it's an oh-so-welcome change from all that stormy anger - "not to break the baby. I was a very young child, see, and Loki- he seemed much as a toy. A noisy toy." Thor laughs softly. "I'm told he was quiet, as babies go, but I quickly found ways to make him shriek and howl." He sighs, mood abruptly somber. "In retrospect I can only imagine that game was rather less fun for baby Loki than it was for me."

Jane shifts, cuddling against Thor's big arm. "Little kids everywhere do these things, Thor. He was probably too young to remember anyway."

"Oh, I would not be too certain of that, Jane. My brother has- had an old soul." They sit silent; this time, though, he ultimately continues unprodded. "He was the cutest little thing. He toddled after me everywhere his stubby legs would carry him. In those early years poor Mother was constantly admonishing me to wait for him, not hurt him, not tease him, not leave him behind. And between us Loki and I probably broke half the bones in his body over time." He snorts. "I must sound like I'm the real monster here. But you have to understand - he was a tough little thing. And he was- he got his magic very early. The only defense I had against it was to flatten him."

Jane chuckles, even though it’s kind of not funny. "We women joke that Midgard men don't grow up; they just get bigger. I'm starting to think that might be true of the Aesir as well." She is, actually, and more than just starting - the toddler scenario Thor just described is- was exactly how the brothers treat- treated one another as adults. And it was probably exactly as (in)effective.

Thor gives her a playful shove. "My feelings are hurt, Jane Foster. I assure you my brother and I are long since grown men." And then spoils his mock-seriousness with a chuckle. "Most of the time."

It's awkward to hear Thor speak of Loki in the present tense, but Jane doesn't want to break the vastly-improved mood. She makes an effort to keep her tone light. "So, tell me more. Did you have- schooling? Do Aesir children attend school?"

"Most do, after a fashion, but we were royalty. We had tutors. And, of course, tortured them relentlessly. Figuratively, I mean," he adds with a laugh as she stiffens. "As I'm sure children do everywhere. I preferred _doing_ to reading," - oh, she can't imagine that; not at all - "and Loki... well, Loki loved to read but the pace was too slow. He was always way out ahead. He was so smart..."

Thor trails off, sipping his tea. "There are a lot of things I- I wish I'd told him. Instead I always teased him for fighting like a girl."

She can see that - against Thor's greater size Loki only ever had speed and surprise as allies. Still: "Having now seen Sif and your mother" - she almost adds _may she rest in peace;_ childhood habits DO die hard, it seems - "in action, though, I fail to see how that's an insult." Loki, for all he may not have smashed things to bits like his brother... well, in her book he was pretty fucking badass there at the end.

Last, but not least, his physical presence on Svartalfheim - pulling her to safety, shielding her with a lithe, strong, very male body from Malekith's attacks - hardly struck her as _girly._

That, however, is probably NOT the sort of _not hating my brother_ Thor has in mind. So Jane - wisely, she thinks - leaves off after her fighting style observation and waits quietly.

"Loki did fight according to his gifts," Thor acknowledges. "You make a fair point."

Jane smiles. "I'm a scientist. Fair points are my specialty."

"That is something you and my brother hold in common," Thor responds, "although he was rather more enamored of making _unfair_ points than you."

"But he loved you, and you him." She's sure of it. All of it.

"Aye." This time, Thor's laugh is a touch bitter. Sad. "He once told me "...never doubt that I love you," and I rarely did. Sadly, I took him - in that moment - at face value and it made me cruel."

Okay, better than fighting, but not the direction she'd intended this to take. She tries to steer them back. "I think he knew, Thor. I do. You were both unkind, yes, but I think he knew. And thank you," - she squeezes his huge arm with her non-tea-saucer-balancing hand - "for telling me all of this. I do feel like I know your brother much better now." She takes a big gulp of her tea.

~

Odin himself is not gifted with the _sight_. Rather, it is Gungnir - Gungnir taken to hand, on the raised dais that holds the scarred, repaired remains of Asgard's ancestral throne - that allows him to see and hear, far and wide.

This bit of inconceivably-handy information Loki’d managed to wring from Frigga long ago. And, of course, he'd put it to extensive test during his short prior tenure as Asgard's king.

Now, he holds the mighty spear erect. Sprawls like a jungle cat across the throne - the doors are sealed with powerful seidr; he needed some _me time_ in his own form - and focuses on Midgard.

On London.

On the timeworn sitting room of a small flat he's only ever seen through others' eyes.

It seems he truly _was_ right about this mortal - on first inauspicious meeting - after all: Oh, he _does_ like her.


	22. Mercy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place pre-movie, post-prolog. It's actually a reasonable length, for a change.
> 
> Odin plays favorites; Frigga can too. Or, Frigga beats Odin at his own game.

"But he is _not your son_ ,” Odin hisses, his face inches from hers. "He is a dangerous weapon – a vicious, unpredictable weapon I have unwittingly unleashed upon the universe - and I must now see him stopped."

Frigga holds her ground. "A _weapon._ Loki."

"Loki. Look at the damage he has wrought. At the many lives - _innocent_ lives - he has laid to waste. And yet you would have me let him go free. Your unwarranted love for Loki blinds you to the simple truth of the matter."

"Do not be ridiculous. I have not and will not ask that he be let to go free. You must know I, of everyone, simply cannot idly wave a hand and pretend none of this has happened. But in turn _you_ will not convince me Loki is beyond all hope. That he cannot return to a sane and decent path. Say whatever you might he _is_ my son, just as surely as if this womb" - she smoothes the front of her skirts, below her breastplate - "of mine had borne him, and I _do_ love him. More than that, though, I have faith in him. In his ability to once more find his way."

"He is not worthy of your love. Of our love." Odin takes a step back and turns on his heel, stomping off across the chamber. "He has taken everything we have given him and thrown it back in our faces. I will not have this continue. Do you understand me, woman? I will not."

Frigga sighs. This is utterly exasperating. Her husband - her _king_ \- is so like his boys, both his boys, in so many ways. Or, rather, they are both so like him. And yet he steadfastly refuses to admit - to even see – the salient point: His is largely the influence that shaped the both of them into the men - the beasts - they are today.

Strong, stubborn, willful, quick to anger, quick to take offense (and to give it). Of course, there are good things too. More good than bad, with all three of them. But just now Odin seems determined to demonstrate few (if any) positive traits of his own... and if she cannot manage better, Loki – her baby - will die for it.

"Odin, listen to me," she tries again. "Please. Of course I loathe the events Loki has set in motion. The atrocities he has committed. I have no doubt: Well and truly he must be punished. And, until he recognizes - and admits, for that is essential - the error in his ways, all the Nine must be protected from his madness. I know this, I do. But do not kill him, my husband. Do not have him killed. Do not turn your back on this, your lesser son."

" _Lesser_ son," he growls, powerful hands clenching into white-knuckled fists "So you would blame _me_ for this, and not the monster who deserves such credit."

_We are all of us monsters, dear one,_ Frigga thinks. Says instead "We all share in the blame. Yes, Loki's actions are his own, but our hands are bloody just the same."

And then it comes to her.

"Would you still kill him, if their places were exchanged? If this were not Loki, but Thor?"

Odin spins to face her. She watches her arrow hit its mark, sure and true. "Thor would never do such terrible things," he blusters, face flushed, expression furious.

"Listen to yourself. And you accuse _me_ of love-blindness. When Thor last journeyed to Jotunheim, should I suppose he was solely there to entreat upon Laufey-King? Not intending to harm anyone? Calm and rational in his every word and deed? Is that what you would have me believe?"

"THOR HAS CHANGED!!" Odin slams a fist down on the heavy wooden table, his angry roar echoing off the vaulted ceiling.

Frigga squares her shoulders, hands on her hips. "Thank you. That was my point precisely."

She has won; she knows it, he knows it. He will be impossible for days... weeks, months, more. But what, really, is a little discord in comparison to the life of her precious younger son?


	23. Care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Frigga's death but before Thor springs Loki from the dungeon. In the movie, that seems to happen nearly immediately... but we see the one brief scene where Algrim puts Malekith back into what looks like stasis to heal, so I have to assume The Plot takes a little time to assemble. Otherwise, stasis: instant healing FTW!
> 
> Malekith overthinks things, or: too little, too late.
> 
> Look! Another reasonably-sized ficlet!

It had almost come to nothing. A simple, lazy miscalculation in Asgard's royal suite - he'd underestimated the woman, both in her personal skill and in her devotion to the light-loving Aesir parasites who call her queen - and he'd very nearly died.

He'd been unforgivably irresponsible, his reward the lightning-sear along his face.

Dying itself is nothing; Malekith fully expects to die in achievement of this victory. There is nothing left for him in this long, tedious life once the final battle for darkness is won - his own family long gone to their graves, at the hand of the boy who scorched him's grandsire, and Algrim more and more lost to the Kurse with each hideous cycle of their enemy the sun - but, still. It is only he who can safely wield the Aether. Without him the battle is lost, and the war.

He cannot afford to be so careless.

Malekith allows himself no illusion: Had it not been for Algrim, ever quick-witted despite the beast he has heroically chosen to become, it would already be over. Done. Lost. The boy - the Odinson; though Svartalfheim maintains no diplomatic relations with the Realm Eternal, it takes little genius to recognize the creature who commands Mjolnir - would have killed him on the spot.

Had not his mother.

That's the part that really rankles Malekith. He has studied the Aesir, his enemy - both before the last convergence, when they stole his Aether from him like common thieves, and since his recent awakening - and has read that they arm and train their womenfolk as fighters. While Asgard's armies are largely made up of men, the women left behind are said to be prepared to defend themselves - and their terrible golden realm, one homestead at a time - admirably.

He should never have assumed the queen an exception. Of course she could fight, and well. And, housed as she was in such blindingly glorious quarters, he'd had no doubt who she must be.

He'd been an idiot, pure and simple, and only Algrim had saved them.

Such irony, to be saved twice in a span of minutes by one destined solely to serve as the ultimate killing machine.

It seems with Algrim by his side, he cannot fail.

Algrim, to whom he owes so much.

From whom he has taken- everything.

Malekith does not remember much of being nursed back to health; nothing of their return to the ship, and little of the lengthy treatments that followed. There are brief flashes of incredible pain - he clings to these, as a reminder of the cost of failure - and equally-brief glimpses of- of what he can only term _loving kindness_. Algrim's big fingers carefully salving his ruined face. Algrim gruffly offering kind encouragement as he closes the stasis hood.

Algrim bathing him and changing him and _holding his hand_ through the worst of the pain.

Some of it, his drugged mind probably concocted. It won't do to think too much about why.

Their time, if ever it were to be, is come and past. They are no longer individuals, free to live their lives; rather, they are symbols. Ciphers. An unstoppable agent of mass destruction and a compass.

Malekith would be lying, though, did he not admit to thinking – when he has a free moment, here and there - about it a little.


	24. Free-fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Wait.
> 
> Heimdall lets Loki drive, which is never a particularly good idea.
> 
> This one is a little M for, well, if you've been following this you know where Loki and Heimdall seem to be headed. Just a little, though.

It's been lifetimes since he did this but it seems he can still simply shut his eyes and let his body take over.

Which is how Heimdall has come to have Loki backed up hard against the cell door, wrists pinned overhead, as he devours Loki's mouth with a degree of ferocity that borders on frightening.

So much so that, when the sheer need for oxygen forces them apart, the first thing that tumbles out of Heimdall's mouth is _sorry_.

He lets go of Loki's thin wrists. Takes a step back. Slides both palms down the door, slowly, and onto Loki's shoulders. They're both breathing hard, and Loki is looking at the floor. Again.

"Sorry," Heimdall repeats. "I- I let myself get a little carried away there. You-," - he's not quite sure what to say to fix this - "you feel nice." It's true, very true, but it feels a little too much like blame. Especially since Loki isn't responding. "Did I hurt you? I didn't mean to hurt you."

Heimdall _thinks_ that much is true, at least. He strokes lightly down Loki's arms, where Loki has let them fall limp along his sides, and then wraps both his own arms around the prince's thin frame and cuddles him close. "Are you okay?" Loki nods, against Heimdall's shoulder, but then shivers and starts - silently, privately, face buried against Heimdall's arm - to cry.

As much as it really should, this crack in Loki’s emotional armor doesn't deaden Heimdall's lust in the slightest - he wants to force a hand under Loki's chin and kiss him more, harder, to taste the salt of his tears - and that truly does frighten him. He is not like this. This is not him.

A fleeting thought: Loki is causing this somehow.

Well, if he is, it doesn't seem intentional... Loki's body language is all _sad_ and _lost_. Once again, Heimdall's not sure what to do. He relaxes his grip slightly, giving Loki space - physically and mentally - to pull away if needed; instead, Loki hisses in protest and snuggles closer.

Okay, then.

Heimdall's body hasn't forgotten how to hold and pet, either. He does both, quietly and for a long time… simply letting Loki cry and cry.

At long last, Loki snuffs loudly. Clears his throat. Even so, when he speaks - "Gods. I don't know what that was about." - his voice is rough, his face wet against Heimdall's shirtless front.

Heimdall, who desperately doesn't want to be the _what_ , the cause. "If I hurt you," he tries again, "I really am sorry."

Loki laughs. "It isn't that. I wanted it. _Want_ it," he corrects himself quickly, laughing again, "except now I'm slimy and disgusting, so I've probably lost my window of opportunity."

He hasn't.

"Which is a shame, because I was enjo-."

"Stop. Just stop."

Heimdall slides a hand up under messy hair and grasps the back of Loki's neck, thumb and fingers digging in. "Shh. No, you haven't. You haven't lost anything," _not that I can give you, at least,_ he carefully doesn't add. As it is, his own voice is embarrassingly throaty. _Needy_. "But I have to imagine you need a few moments, so you can breathe." Heimdall tries to lighten things up with a chuckle. Mostly fails.

"No, not really. The Allfather doesn't have this cell set to contain my power," Loki offers, wiping his face with one hand. When he looks up, dry and clean, it's like nothing ever happened. "Remember, I'm dead."

Except, when his mouth finds Heimdall's, Loki is very, very much alive. Despite the quick cleanup he does taste of salt. Salt and sex and something sharp and spicy that must be his seidr. Whatever it is, it's intoxicating. Literally: Loki kisses like Ragnarok is upon them and this universe is ending, like he will never get enough of touch again; Heimdall feels the cell start to tilt and spin.

He drops to his knees on the cold stone, pulling Loki down with him. His hands are in Loki's hair; Loki's own frame Heimdall's face. They tug at one another, impatient, jockeying to get as close as physically possible. Loki ends up straddling one of Heimdall's thick thighs; as they writhe against one another, kissing and biting and kissing again, Heimdall feels the curve of Loki's erection press against his hip.

It startles him back into something close to reality. "Loki," he asks against the prince's warm, slick mouth, "is there a line here somewhere?"

"A line?" Loki's voice is low. Drugged.

"A line. A point from which, once passed, we can never come back?"

Loki snorts. "I suspect if there is," – he speaks a little more normally, but his lips brush against Heimdall's and for a long moment the two of them are once more lost to kissing - "we passed it the day I used the Casket of Ancient Winters against you." He pulls back and looks Heimdall full in the face, his eyes dark, lips red against his pale skin. "Don't try to figure out if this is okay. I'm sure it's not, you know? Just go with it. Please? We'll deal with the fallout later."

It sends a chill down his spine. Somehow Heimdall's reasonably certain this is the very same logic Loki has been employing since well before Thor's coronation. Logic which has a track record one can only properly term _abysmal._

But as Loki angles back in to nip his lip sharply, warm and malleable and tasting of _promise,_ Heimdall simply cannot find it in himself to care.


	25. Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ends around the same time as Freedom, but it's more of a retrospective.
> 
> Thor inconveniently sees only parts of the picture.
> 
>  
> 
> (sorry, back on the heartbreak express now, everyone)

"But _mother_ , he likes it. He _says_ so. _Tell_ her, Loki!"

They have just tumbled down a long slope below the orchard, rolling like grass-stained logs, for the umpteenth time. The first umpteen-minus-one times were wonderfully wild and free but on this last round mother caught them.

"I see that," she says with a smile before Loki can catch his breath enough to come to Thor's aid. "But I would speak with you just the same. Now, Thor," she adds when he drags his small, boot-clad feet.

She helps him up to sit beside her; the stone bench is tall, his feet swing. "Your brother is a playmate, but not a plaything." She cups Thor's chin with a gentle hand. "Do you understand? If you break him beyond fixing you will be very sad, as will your father and I."

"But he _likes_ it," Thor tries again. He turns to look towards his brother, now scrambling gracelessly up the slope, for support but mother steers his attention back.

"Thor, your brother is younger than you are. He wants to be with you, to do as you do. But he is too young to know his limits. You must be careful with him, Thor. Promise me you will?"

"Of course, mother!" Thor leans in to hug her skirts; she plants a loud kiss atop his tangled curls.

And then he's free! Free to tear off down the slope again, rolling and shrieking in wild abandon.

Free to - not more than three trips down the grassy hillside later - collide with Loki and then, before either of them can even scream, smash Loki-first into a small tree.

There's a sickening crunch and Loki lies still. Silent.

Thor is certain he has broken his little brother far, far beyond fixing. He hangs back - helpless, sobbing - as mother rushes down to them and scoops Loki off the grass with a choked cry.

Hangs back, helpless, as the healers work seriously, silently, around Loki's still, pale frame.

Hangs back, helpless, in the healing rooms that evening as Loki – fixable, but still all big, sad eyes and bandaged head, grass and leaves still caught in his inky mop - cries big, silent tears of pain. Tears that streak down his white little face like garden snails and disappear beneath the blankets tucked up to his pointy chin.

When Thor finally manages the courage to come take Loki's small hand, its fingers dwarfed even by his childish chubby ones, Loki squeezes tight.

Thor feels like a fool as he, at a nudge from mother, says "I'm sorry."

~

Thor is strong, but Loki is agile.

Which is how his brother comes to be impossibly far up the tree, waving gleefully. "You'll never catch me here, brother," Loki yells, laughing as Thor starts gamely up after him. 

As Thor finally makes it to the branching-off point, the place where Loki's limb leaves its trunk, Loki screams. "Do not come out here, you fool," he admonishes. "You are too heavy! You would but manage to kill us both! I'm serious, Thor," he adds - face pale, knuckles white, hair streaking out behind him in the spring breeze - as Thor tests the limb with one foot.

"Oh, of course you are - you wish but to win. You will not scare me into giving up so easily, brother."

He steps out with his other foot, arms still gripped tight around the trunk. He starts to shift his weight. The last thing he sees in Loki's face is true fear, as the branch gives way with a loud snap and his little brother falls.

It takes an impossibly long time; Loki seemingly strikes every single branch on the way down, tossed helplessly this way and that like a broken doll. It isn't until Loki hits the ground far below - legs splayed, one arm twisted unnaturally beneath his still, blood-spattered form - that Thor thinks to move.

Getting down takes an impossibly long time, too - Thor is too shocked and shaky to hurry - but at last he manages to run to his little brother's side.

Loki is motionless, eyes closed. Thor thinks for sure he's killed his little brother. "HEIMDALL! MOTHER!", he screams into the cloudless sky - he could probably manage his brother's weight alone now but still he hangs back, foolish and afraid. All he do while they await mother is chant "I'm sorry, I'm sorry:"

~

The wolves chase sun and moon across many, many skies; the realms spin about Midgard many, many turns.

Thor still hurts his brother, but Loki has grown calculating and hurts him near as often in return. Sometimes it is with sticks and staves they battle, or even the great weapons of their house, but most often Loki's tools of choice are his sharp tongue and his anger.

Loki's rage burns hot, burns cold. Cuts like no blade ever could. Thor is often unsure how they got here, but one thing he knows: He feels the fool, and he is sorry.

~

Until he can no longer be - Loki's actions escalate from small, hurtful, puzzling to horrifying beyond all normal measure.

Thor still hangs back. Still fears he may kill his brother. Sometimes, though, he wonders if perhaps that wouldn't be the best approach to take. For all of them.

And yet he always finds he cannot, however roughly Loki guides his hand.

~

This battle is at long last back in Thor's dominion. They - he and Loki - have set their differences aside; they have devised a plan together and executed it neatly. He has protected his little brother, in the end, just as mother would have wanted. He is polishing the enemy off. Loki is staying clear. This time Thor is certain; he will not kill his brother.

And then a grenade goes off near Jane, and Loki throws her to safety.

Everything that happens after that – after the branching-off point - is red-tinged with adrenaline. The tide shifts; somehow Malekith's monster is getting the upper hand. Thor fights at the outer limits of his capability. Reaches for Mjolnir-...

-and then it's done. The creature vanishes, all fire and bone and roaring agony, and it's just Loki.

Loki lying pale and blood-spattered on the ground.

There is no calling Heimdall this time, nor mother.

They do get one final chance at words, he and his little brother. At long, long-awaited last, Loki's voice echoes _Thor's_ mind:

_I am a fool._

_I'm sorry._

And then Loki is... gone. It doesn’t matter who’s the fool, or who is sorry. Not anymore.

Because here, in the end, it seems Thor _has_ managed to break his brother beyond fixing after all.


	26. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place just after Catch.
> 
> Loki takes the lost Jotun beast back to Jotunheim, as promised.

_It is far, far too risky,_ Thor and the pretend-Allfather had agreed, _to bring the big thing to the observatory un-sedated. It would not understand the Bifrost,_ they reasoned, _and would be terrified. Dangerous. A threat to both itself and others._

Loki had been well more than a bit surprised to find himself personally siding with Thor's mortal, afraid Midgard potions might kill the thing ( _We know nothing of its physiology,_ Jane had stridently and rightfully argued), but Odin himself would be far more concerned for the safety of the Bifrost controls (and, well, _himself_ ) than with the plight of one Jotnar beast (two Jotun beasts, really)... so Loki (frowned unhappily to himself but outwardly) agreed with Thor. He would puzzle over the rest of it - has nearly dying made him _soft_ this time? - another day.

~

The creature is right where they'd agreed it should be, a great sleeping lump. Loki plops it gracelessly at the end of the rainbow bridge, taking just a moment to confirm the thing still lives, and then recalibrates and sends it off to Jotunheim. After a moment's hesitation he grabs Gungnir and jumps after the insensate beast, even as the portal starts to close.

It's only as he lands nearby, sinking deep into the soft snow, that he realizes he can't take the easy way back to Asgard. He sighs, shaking his head ruefully at his own shortsightedness. It seems nearly dying has made him not only soft, but stupid.

And then Loki laughs, carelessly, relieved to find almost all sound absorbed by the drift-softened Jotun landscape: At least he, of all people, is well-equipped when it comes to going home the back way.

The repatriated ice beast is still sleeping, its big ribcage slowly, steadily rising and falling. Compared to the one that had attacked them in Laufey's palace, this particular specimen is actually quite small... _Is it but a baby, or a runt,_ he can't help but wonder.

An involuntary shudder - it is _freezing_ here, and the Allfather (thanks to Loki’s own carelessness) really wasn't properly dressed for an icy adventure - drags him out of his musings. He needs to do something, or hypothermia will take him.

It's rumored to be a pleasant enough way to die, but just now (typical, isn't it?) he’s feeling halfway decent about living and is therefore not in the mood to be doing any more dying.

He considers his options. Dropping the facade should be safe enough; the only Jotun who might have cause to recognize his native form are long since dead. Loki lets fall the glamours one-by-one - first old Odin, then his own undamaged Aesir form, then the scarred version only barely capable of evading Thanos' long, grasping reach - until he sits blue and naked among the deep drifts.

He blinks, twice, then squints; his formerly-dim surroundings are much brighter - painfully so! - and, now that he's squinting away the worst of the brightness, more nuanced through Jotun eyes. He can see texture and detail - structure to the ice bridges, consistency to the snow - his Aesir form has never noticed. Then, too, his distance vision is simply astounding. He rises carefully to standing, turning in a slow circle and surveying the rolling terrain; an ice beast far off in the distance, cheerfully tearing into something bloody at its feet and paying the unexpected visitors no mind. Others scattered about, carrying on with this and that. Stunted-looking forests. Rocky hills, striped and sparkling with the crystalline majesty of frozen waterfalls. Here and there, unusual but not rare enough for comfort, a dangerous crevasse. A steaming spring.

The land is surprisingly beautiful, seen like this - far from the blighted wasteland, home to monsters, Loki is used to picturing. The horrid ice-strewn, boulder-covered wreckage he'd last known.

What he doesn't see anywhere, though, is evidence of so much as one single living Jotnar. No trampled snow. No smoke. No blue-skinned hunters. No boats in the fjords, for water or for ice. No habitations.

Granted, he intentionally landed the two of them a good distance from Laufey’s palace, in a quiet area he hoped would be far from what passes for Jotun civilization. But now? Now, in this form, he can see all the way to the distant horizon. There should be someone, somewhere.

Loki concentrates fiercely, frantically, trying to summon what he can recall of his Jotun studies. Did everyone live in the capitol city? Did they live underground? There must be some explanation, something other than the ugly obvious answer staring him in the face…

It was just a few moments, and just aimed at the one point. He cannot have killed them all. Surely.

He can’t. It’s not possible.

_Please_

~

The big-little creature mutters to itself, almost as if it’s dreaming, and slowly opens its eyes. Loki risks a bit of seidr by way of protection, in case the thing charges him, but it doesn’t; it simply looks him over curiously, gives his nearest arm a good sniff, and then struggles to its feet and marches away.

His first thought is to just let it go – he _has_ seen several others of _its_ kind here, after all – but it wobbles, a bit unsteady yet on its sleepy feet, and Loki opts to follow it as a precaution instead.

After a good bit of walking, time spent focusing on the scenery and trying very, very hard not to think, there’s no way around admitting it: This place is truly breathtaking. Jotunheim is – despite the mental picture he’s held for so long – far more than a broken-down city inhabited by- by monsters. It is a constantly-changing kaleidoscope of fascinating wonders, inhabited by cold-suited creatures who go quietly about their creaturely business.

Loki sees yet more ice beasts, closer, as the one he follows grows more and more steady. He also sees what look to be wolves, and strange chubby birds. He sees a variety of small four-legged furred herbivores eating groundcover – groundcover, on Jotunheim! – around what, from the steam (not to mention the groundcover!), appears to be a large warm-water pool.

In fact, he sees everything but Jotuns.

What does it say about him that, when confronted with the possibility that his plan really did succeed, he feels only cold horror?

~

After what probably amounts to hours of walking – in this form, Loki does not feel the chill and has actually found the exertion pleasant – his beast, now chipper and perky, stops suddenly and calls out.

Another of its kind, huge and lumbering and _uncomfortably close_ , pops its head out from behind a large snow dune. Loki freezes, prepared to fight, but the thing ignores him completely in favor of his walking companion. There’s quite a bit of enthusiastic chittering and sniffing, and then the two march off together.

Leaving Loki alone.

Completely alone.

He’s been gone too long, first from here and now from Asgard. There’s nothing to be done for it, sadly. Rather than retracing his path – there’s not time, and the beauty of it all is too painful now – he steps onto one of Yggdrasil’s smaller branches.

One last brief stop to pick up his belongings (including Gungnir – Odin would _kill_ him) and he’s back on the tree and headed-

-home?


	27. Brute

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place just after the end of the Avengers, just before the start of this movie and before Mercy, when Thor has just brought Loki back to Asgard.
> 
> Thor is fed up with Loki's shizit. It turns out, though, he has some of his own.

"Now at long last will you listen - without interruption, without argument, without carelessly-spewed vitriol - to what I have to say. Is that clear, Loki?" Thor's voice is louder than it probably needs to be, given how his brother is backed up against the cold stone wall only a forearm's span away, but he has bottled this up a long time and he's done holding back. Done. Through.

Loki doesn't nod - just glares balefully at Thor, green eyes leaden and exhausted above the metal muzzle still quieting that hopelessly sharp little mouth - but he doesn't shake his head either. Thor figures that has to count for something.

"Do you realize what you DID down there, Loki?” Thor squares his shoulders, standing tall. “To Midgard? To the poor helpless mortals? To my colleagues my partners in arms, my _friends?_ The number of people you killed? The lives and property you irrevocably destroyed? Really, Loki? Do you have even the very least idea? Do you?"

Of course Loki - gagged, muzzled Loki, thin wrists bound tight and dangling heavy links of seidr-suppressing chain - manages no reply. But that? That? That silence? That is _splendid._ That is perfectly fine because for once in his long, wretched life Thor has a great deal of his own to say.

"This business on Midgard, this is not one of your wretched _games,_ Loki," Thor growls. "These mortals - these _people_ \- have loved ones and important work and many responsibilities cramming full their brief lives. They work hard for what they need, for what they want. They work hard for the chance to take good care of one another. And do you know what, Loki?" He pauses as though his brother might wish to react; evidently Loki doesn't, and that reticence only serves to anger Thor all the more.

"When you maim them, when you kill them, it is a permanent thing. They cannot simply summon themselves a healer, nor waltz around brazenly healing themselves as you do. As you _would_ do," - Thor pokes the deep, purpled gash across Loki's nose - stark reminder of his brother's recent encounter with Banner's beast-form – with a stiff, stabbing finger, none too gently either, and is more than a little disappointed when Loki fails to flinch - "were your considerable, mis-appropriated powers not kept from you presently."

Breathing heavily, Thor leans in close and inspects Loki's pale, strained, battered face with powerful fingers. A sharp squeeze here, a jab there. "Tell me, Loki, how does it feel to _hurt_ even a little without relief? How would _you_ feel, were your loved ones subjected to-... ah, but wait." Thor lets his voice drop to a floor-shaking, thunderous rumble. "You _have_ no loved ones, _do_ you? There are none – not so much as one single solitary soul - you would put first, before your own hollow needs. None for whom you truly spare concern, nor muster the least shreds of caring, save _Loki_." He leans in closer still, lips nearly touching Loki’s muzzle. "And truth be told, really, not even _Loki_ these last few cursed turns. You have become quite incapable of love, have you not, _brother?_ "

He knows he's shouting - it feels _good_ to shout, to get it all out for once and for all - right in Loki's face, but it isn't until he feels Loki's larynx bob against his palm, at the padded base of his own thumb, that Thor realizes he has his brother caught quite firmly by the throat.

They teeter like that, on the edge of the knife, Thor panting through bared teeth and Loki - eyes suddenly bright with something Thor dares not name - silent behind his mask of warm, enchanted metal. 

Thor could kill Loki now, quick and easy or slow and ugly, if he had but half a mind to do so.

It's disconcerting to realize he just might.

"AUGGGHHH!!" With a harsh bellow he flings Loki away, turning aside at the end so as not to see his brother's head smack hard against the damp stone floor. He stomps off across the holding cell, cursing – himself, Loki, Odin, the birds in the sky and the beasts across the land, in every conceivable combination - angrily. At the far wall he pauses, chest heaving beneath his armor, fighting for control.

When he at last turns back to face his brother, Thor finds Loki has struggled up to one elbow. His eyes are blank, unreadable.

A thin line of blood-tinged saliva trails down his neck, over the reddened marks – the violent handprint - Thor's thumb and fingers have left in their stead.

Thor stalks back, with less fury this time. He squats low before his brother, elbow on knee, bringing the other palm flat to the floor. "I _hate_ this, Loki. I hate the ease with which you lure forth the monster; the brute within."

Loki pushes himself - slowly, painfully - to sitting. Or what passes for it; he slumps limp against the wall. With his left hand, its knuckles cut and swollen, he gestures. It's a small, spare motion, and Thor knows it in an instant; the battle language the sons of Odin have always shared, all these many centuries.

"Me too," Loki's fingers sketch "Oh, me too."


	28. Wonder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Free-fall.
> 
> Figuring Heimdall out isn't as easy as it sounds.

"Oh, _gods_ , Loki...." Heimdall's voice trails off, ending in a long, rough moan. He clears his throat. "This- this is just amazing. It- it has been so long-."

Whatever he might have intended to say next is wholly lost to chewing, as he scoops up another huge bite of steaming stew and stuffs it rather messily in.

The meal is nothing formal-dinner-special - just what the kitchen staff could provide on rather short notice when their king showed up with an unscheduled craving - but Loki's eaten enough dungeon fare in recent memory to completely get where Heimdall is coming from.

He tells himself that's why he brought this bowl of food, carrying it all the way from the scullery; why he's here at all: Loki wonders. He wants to ask some real questions, needs some real answers, and nothing gets a prisoner talking like a shot at _some real food._ Food that's flavorful and identifiable and not nine tenths of its way to the garbage heap before it even hits the dish.

The alternative explanations - that he's being nice, and/or trying to barter for Heimdall's friendship - trouble Loki. Make him feel vulnerable. Sad. Afraid. So: No. This is strictly about softening the prisoner pre-interrogation. Or, at least, getting those answers.

_You weren't nearly so worried about the deep and hidden meaning of things when you had the Guardian's strong hands all over your sorry naked self,_ he doesn't quite manage to stop himself from thinking, _or when you were fucking bawling._

Today, for certain, Loki is not here for comfort. Or companionship. He's not. He wonders; therefore, he is here for information. _Information._

Which is why he's not entirely sure _how_ exactly he has abruptly ended up straddling Heimdall's thighs - basically sitting in the Guardian's lap - licking the last bits of rich, well-spiced sauce off warm, soft, _welcoming_ lips.

With Heimdall's big arms around him, pulling him close, one hand slid up under Loki's tunic and splayed out between his shoulder blades as if to touch as much of him at once as possible.

_Information,_ he reminds himself sternly, as Heimdall's broad, calloused palms slide up his ribs and he's all but lost to shuddering and whimpering into the Guardian's mouth.

Information. Loki makes himself push back up to standing and steps away, ignoring the quick flash of _something_ across Heimdall's normally-expressionless face. "I want to talk to you. Actually," - Loki shoves his hands in his pockets, trying hard to sound officious - and to not hunch miserably… _Actually,_ he's realizing he really doesn't want to talk, not anymore; he wants to lose himself mind and body in Heimdall's capable hands; but he's started this and should finish - "I want _you_ to talk to me."

Heimdall's eyes narrow. "Go on," the guardian offers, taking a more reasonable forkful of meat this time. He's so completely closed-off and composed that Loki is whiplash-disoriented; it’s as if _that business a moment ago_ \- the part with the straddling and the touching and the licking, the part that has Loki far, far more than a little flustered - never happened.

He turns his back to the table and walks a few steps away. "Why did you free me?"

Heimdall takes a big, loud swallow of ale. Sets his tankard down with a dull thud. "I did not free you, Loki. Your brother-."

Frustration, for the moment at least, trumps- whatever odd mood’d had Loki caught in its clutches. This is so predictable. "No, no lying. I have spoken with my brother. I have, during our travels to Svartalfheim," he protests, embarrassingly defensive, over Heimdall's skeptical-sounding huff. "He explained that it was you who suggested I was the only option. Why?" Loki turns abruptly to face Heimdall again. Moves closer, staying just out of reach. "Why," he asks again, letting the hint of an edge creep into his voice, "when you know those pathways just as well as I do?"

"We both know them, true, but only you can traverse them."

"Thor could have done it, with your direction."

Heimdall sighs. "Thor was torn between his duty and his love. And besides-."

"-you wanted me dead," Loki finishes.

"I wanted no such thing, Loki. That was never my intent."

"So you admit it; you _did_ have intent."

Another weary sigh. "Sure enough, Loki, you've caught me out. Feel better?"

Oddly, he doesn't. He gives a sharp nod anyway. And then feels even worse.

"I was- I _am_ in a difficult position,” Heimdall explains. “I am sworn to serve our king and yet his intentions made such allegiance most- challenging. I wanted the universe to survive, you see; and Asgard." His voice drops low enough as to be barely audible. "And Odin seemed to have lost sight of both those fundamental goals."

"And?" Loki gestures impatiently for Heimdall to continue.

"And I knew it would take everyone's help - Thor's, his companions', mine... yours - to afford the least hope of success."

"Success." Loki laughs, bitter. Spreads his hands in a broad, sweeping gesture. "This is your success."

"Indeed. The universe is safe. Asgard stands. We all yet live. You are caged."

"Caged." So- so, this is _interesting_. "You are mistaken. I am as free as a bird. It is only you who must face the cage."

Heimdall's laugh is as dark as his own. "You think so, Loki? Tell me: Just what exactly are you _as free as a bird_ to do?"

That spurs up a burst of bright, hot anger. "I am free to kill you," - Loki flips a blade out of nowhere - "for starters."

"And where, pray tell, does killing me leave you?"

Blind. Hurting. Cold. Alone. Loki rolls the knife across his hand. Twisting snakelike, slams the blade into the tabletop with a heavy _THUNK_ not more than a hair's breadth from Heimdall's inner wrist.

Heimdall does not so much as flinch. Instead, he rolls his hand in and closes strong fingers over Loki's, still on the knife handle.

A sudden wave of emotion chokes Loki. He opens his mouth, intending to loose a sharp retort but instead managing only a faint, strangled cry.

"I do not think you want me dead, Loki. You never did. You've said so yourself, and I think you want my death less now than ever before."

"You-," Loki coughs. His eyes are watering; he _will not_ call this _tears,_ he will _not_. "You should not trust me."

"As I recall you instructed your- you instructed _Thor_ to trust in your rage. I, for my part, - Heimdall's fingers close _hard_ around Loki's own, grinding knife handle against bone - "trust in your _pain_."

Loki gasps, gone suddenly cold with something not unlike terror. "Are you going to kill _me_ , then?"

"Hardly. Come here."

He's seemingly frozen to the spot - his brain unable to process, his body unable to move. Loki stands rigid, uncertain. Watches in confusion as Heimdall pries his bruised fingers - gently, now - from the knife.

"Come here, Loki."

It isn’t until Heimdall lifts Loki's fingers to his mouth and closes lips and tongue around them – carefully, slowly; all soft, wet heat – that the caged prince finds himself doing just as he is bidden.


	29. Resemblance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place at the end, after the various Heimdall visits.
> 
> Thor wants answers; Jane doesn't, but gets them anyway.
> 
> ~
> 
> There probably won't be many more of these... I've hit most of what's come to me, without getting too far into AU-ville, and I do have a small AU piece I'm working on (that I'll post separately). We'll see.

"It is- just a feeling, I think you would term it. A sense I have that my brother is- is not completely gone from us."

Jane chooses her words carefully before replying. "I know you miss him terribly, Thor, and I- I wish there was something we could do," - she does, at least from the standpoint of helping Thor feel better; while she’s not at all certain she wishes Loki was still here, her statement isn't exactly a lie - "but I really don't think he will come back to you this time. I'm sorry."

Maybe it's different with gods but, in Jane's _poor mortal_ experience, once-living things that die tend to stay dead. She squeezes Thor's hand gently, trying her best (which, admittedly, isn't very good) to offer comfort.

"How can you be so certain," he asks.

_How can you NOT be,_ she wants to say but doesn't. Even among her own people, there are plenty who would side with Thor. To Jane's scientific mind, though, it just feels... ridiculous. Pointless. She herself prefers to accept, adjust, and move on. "Well, we saw him die, for starters. That's a pretty big _for starters,_ you know."

Thor scrubs his face with his free hand. "We did. It is. And yet I have seen him die before... and still he lived. Lives?"

"You've seen him _fall_ ," she corrects gently. "That's not quite the same thing, is it?" She specifically doesn't say _that's not as bad,_ because in some ways she thinks Loki's fall was by turns worse than death and similarly permanent.

Thor, though, is by nature boundlessly hopeful; to him Loki's fall was probably just something more along the lines of a temporary inconvenience.

Which might just largely account for their - Thor's and Loki's - subsequent disagreement, now that she thinks about it.

Sure enough:

"You are right, of course. When Loki fell - despite what I would have sworn, given the horrible sight with which my eyes so tormented me, at the time - that was indeed not dying. It was but a trick, was it not?"

_Oh, no, Thor, it was NOT just a trick_ , Jane thinks as he goes on:

"But I have see him die in battle before, or suffer mortal wounds at least, and yet live. I- I do not know that I can explain this properly, Jane," he leans back in his chair, looking up at - beyond, probably - the ceiling - "but I- I deeply feel that he is still among us. And when I am on Asgard my sense of him - of his _presence_ \- is especially strong. I can only wonder if he has yet again fallen back on some spellwork; some trick."

Wishful thinking or no, she does have to admit it; this- this business Thor’s describing sounds like Loki, like something Loki might cook up. It seems, she thinks unhappily, Thor's eternal hope in the face of insurmountable odds may be mildly contagious. "So, is there something you want to try? Do you want to go - back to Asgard, maybe - and look for him?"

At his quavering sigh, Jane's brief flash of hope fades. This isn’t knowledge; it’s fantasy. "I do not know.” Even Thor sounds less certain; if he chases this down, he risks proving it false. “I- I know not what to do, really. My brother can be- odd. If he does not wish to be found out, he will make doing so very difficult."

_Or he may just be dead,_ Jane reminds herself. Occam's razor dictates that the simplest explanation is most often the correct one, and _Loki died_ certainly seems simplest.

Even so, she has to try. For Thor.

"What about Heimdall? He sees everything, right?"

Thor actually looks her in the face, for the first time since they began this discussion. "That is a question well worth asking. Sometimes Loki hides himself from Heimdall, but it takes energy he may not have had if- when he was healing. Your idea, it is very wise thinking. Thank you, Jane Foster!"

This time, he actually looks excited. Almost happy. She wishes she could share his enthusiasm, but the moment has passed and she only feels sad. Sad, and a little like she's leading him on. It's not a good feeling. Still, she has no choice but to press on: "Do you think your father will let you speak with Heimdall? He's not at the observatory anymore, right?"

"You are right again; I believe he remains imprisoned for- for assisting us in freeing you from the Aether. And I do not know what father might allow."

"But you could ask him." She leans in to kiss him, just a quick little smooch.

~

Thor stands outside Odin's offices, rather wishing he'd brought Jane along. She had offered to stay home on Midgard, under theory that the Allfather would not be pleased to air dirty family business in front of a mortal _out of place like a goat at a banquet,_ and her reasoning is surely sound. Still, with both mother and now Loki gone and his friends scattered, Thor could use the support.

When did he become so _needy?_ So nervous?

He steps into the doorway.

"What brings you here, my son?" Odin looks tired and a bit strained, as though this encounter is awkward for him as well.

Might as well get right to the point. "I wish to speak with Heimdall, father."

Odin's expression is- odd. "I fear you cannot. He is in solitary confinement." His lone eye narrows. "Why? What business have you with him?"

Thor struggles to find the right approach. Despite Loki's recent compliments, he is still not half the liar he evidently needs to be. "It is nothing worth your time - just an unfinished conversation I would see completed."

"Given that your last conversations were of ill-conceived plots and treason, I find myself disinclined to allow this _completion_ you request."

Thor can't say he is surprised. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised. He can't give up more information, though - if Odin knew why he was really here, Heimdall would likely not be the only one locked away by day's end. Still, he gives it one last attempt: "I just want to make my apologies, father. It was his support of my cause that cost him his freedom, after all."

Odin laughs. "No, it was his poor judgment. But I will be sure to pass along your sincere regrets."

For a moment, he looks _so_ like Loki - the cocked eyebrow, the smirk - that Thor is amazed they are not indeed blood kin. How has he never before noticed how alike they are, in all these many years? Is he truly as blind as Loki has always accused him of being? Or is it not just him? Perhaps Odin is less guarded, now that none but the two of them prevail. Or it is wishful thinking; Thor seeing only what he wishes?

Whatever it might be, the resemblance is uncanny. So much so that it is quite painful to look upon. More than anything, Thor wants to be gone from this place.

That, and _you remind me of Loki_ seems an unwise observation to make - perhaps their moods are more alike than he has known, too. In the end Thor says nothing further save to nod politely, wish his father well, and take his leave.

As he walks away from the door, Odin calls Thor back: "Heimdall's choices were his own, you know."

"As you say, of course, father. Good day."

~

"No luck, huh?" Jane gives Thor a quick hug. It's impossible to miss the tired sadness in his bearing.

"Father forbade me see him." He hugs her back. "You know," - his voice is full of puzzlement - "I never realized until today just how like father Loki could be."

A light - a bright one, at that - goes on. Jane manages to keep her cool, though; all she says is "hmm."


	30. Unrest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one happens sometime during or shortly after Only (which is in Banish the Light). You don't really need to read Only to get it, though. In fact, this one is odd - I'm not sure it's possible to _get_ it at all.
> 
> Odin dreams of Ragnarok, and of things that just simply cannot be.
> 
> This one is pretty weird. Sorry?
> 
>  
> 
> **NOTE: There is a tiny bit of M sexual content here. Blink and you will miss it. Seriously.**

While the elders term it the odinsleep, it's often more of an _odindrowse_. He drifts in and out, wandering aimlessly from dream to daydream to half-waking musing, rarely sinking completely into oblivion and even more rarely truly rising to wakefulness. In this cycle he remembers being awakened just twice, in times of direst need, most recently when Loki and Thor took their grave differences out upon the Bifrost.

The dreams themselves are typically bland and peaceful; the odinsleep is meant as a time of deep healing, emotional and physical, not as a time to work things through.

For all his knowledge and for all his wisdom, though, Odin cannot see beyond the boundaries of the current cycle; if it has to this point been unusually calm, or unusually turbulent, he cannot know.

So, he has no frame of reference for what happens this sleeping. 

It starts off innocently enough.

He is lying comfortable in his great golden bed, only dimly aware of the fine shimmering mesh of the forcefield that helps protect him from harm, when he hears-

_Frigga, fighting with someone. But as the battle of words comes within range of his hearing he knows: It is neither Laufey nor Malekith with whom she trades barbs. Rather, it is him; Odin himself. She is yelling something - something he can't quite make out, though her volume approaches ear-splitting._

_She has a baby in her arms, swaddled tight. When he finally manages to talk his way close enough to see, the baby is Loki._

Odin rouses enough to shift among the silks and furs. It was a frustrating dream, and puzzling; he remembers nothing of the sort ever happening. And, sadly, Frigga is gone - she can't help explain or refute it.

Frigga, gone. He misses her dearly.

Still, the dream is not worth dwelling upon; he will drift back to sleep and all will be-

_-as it never has before, a great Jotun ice beast - actually a miniature one, which proves deeply troubling for some reason he cannot quite pin down - frolics on Midgard. The setting is nondescriptly urban; derelict shells of ugly grey buildings, long-abandoned machinery. The beast romps among the machinery, knocking stacks of debris about like so much kindling._

_For a while, there are no mortals to be seen. Odin watches the beast play at catching birds - like a giant cat of the sort he has seen mortals keep as pets – looking out across the unfolding scene from a vaguely rooftop-esque vantage point._

_When mortals finally arrive, it's via a large black transport vehicle of the sort Midgardian governments universally favor. Armored, black clad mortals storm out like ants and shoot the creature with an odd contraption Odin does not recognize. They take such care in packaging the beast, though, that Odin can only suspect it yet lives. Sure enough; he climbs down from his perch and creeps closer, hoping to get a better look, and is not at all surprised to find it breathing; long, slow slumber-esque inhales and exhales much like his own._

_Though he manages to sneak within touching distance unobserved, he gives himself away screaming when the creature rouses suddenly and bites off his hand._

The Allfather tosses and turns, restless but not awake enough to properly-

_-make obeisance to the King of Asgard. That's him up on the dais, without room for doubt, but he's also watching from the sidelines as the king stands before his loyal subjects. There's something off-seeming about his carriage, about the way he holds Gugnir._

_As his dream-self stands aside, huddled with the gathered Aesir, Odin can't help thinking that something about this other self - the one standing at the top of the golden steps, in front of the whole-again (or still-whole?) throne - reminds him of-_

_-Loki, Loki who stands in Stuttgart, making a royal ass of himself - ordering the mortals this way and that, terrifying them in useless (instead of practical) ways. Loki, who follows his ridiculous performance with a good solid beat-down at the hands of Thor's mortal friends. Once they have him corralled, Thor-_

_-caught red-handed on the training ground with a hand sweetly cupping Sif’s adolescent breast, blushing and denying he has done aught but spar, pleases for Odin’s forgiveness as he stands-_

_-with his mortal lady outside a glass cage of sorts, in a compound whose signage cryptically labels it a zoo. The place, its reason for existing beyond Odin’s grasp, is puzzlingly full of weird and dangerous Midgardian animals. Thor and the Lady Jane Foster laugh together, watching a large serpent as it-_

_-feints at Thor and then backs smoothly away, head raised high and poised to strike. Thor, ever fast despite his size, is able to grasp the huge snake and crush its skull. Odin holds his breath, letting it out in a great relieved whoosh only when Thor turns and strides back towards the waiting army. Thor, strong, capable Thor, who stops halfway to them with a stricken expression on his purpling face and collapses. Caught in one dying hand is Mjolnir, useless against this threat; in the other, a branch of-_

_-mistletoe. Mistletoe? Odin can't even remember why mistletoe is important; only that it fills him with a great and nameless dread. He stops cold, backing away, only to crash into something large and chill and unyielding. Odin spins about, skidding on the ice he hadn't realized was underfoot, and finds himself looking up at King Laufey... just in time to catch the way the king of the frost giants, with a sickeningly loud crack, snaps the neck of a small, blue baby. Laufey grins at Odin, all teeth, and drops the little body to the ground. As the baby flops before him, sprawled broken on the ice, Odin sees the infant is the color and size of Loki but has Thor's-_

_-face distorted with rage as he throws his vicious little adoptive brother against the gunwale of a speeding Asgardian war-craft. Odin can't hear them speak, but Loki evidently says something witty and they're suddenly both of them-_

_-laughing as the slimy, near-skeletal Chitauri officer drops Loki to his knees with a single whip-strike. Odin shifts to get a better view and is struck by a wave of nausea; Loki's own emaciated back is a knotted mess of welts and tears and angry scars. Odin's head starts to spin, everything blurring-_

_-in the rainbow flash of the Bifrost. Slepnir rears up with an deafening stallion’s trumpet, the force of the move nearly throwing Odin. He pulls up with a firm hand to the reins, settling his war-hungry mount in front of King Laufey, here where they stand face to face in the would-be killing fields chosen by his own brash and foolish sons. He's greatly disappointed in Thor, Thor who but for the day's unfortunate events would be king, but he cannot muster surprise at finding-_

_-Loki, locked in vicious hand-to-hand combat with none other than the traitorous Guardian Heimdall. Odin flies over them, in the form of one of his ravens, but as he nears the spot where they roll together in the mud cannot keep from recoiling in horror: For they are not fighting but coupling, rutting near-naked and filthy like beasts in the field. Just as Odin regains enough control of his wings to bank away, Loki stops-mid moan to open bright green eyes and smile up at him over Heimdall’s muscular shoulder. It's an open, honestly-joyful smile that looks even more out of place on Odin's doomed child than does Heimdall himself. The jarring disconnect of it startles Odin temporarily into free-fall; he doesn't correct in time to avoid hearing Loki's scream as he stripes his sweat-streaked, straining belly with-_

_-seed, golden, from the apple he'd managed to steal and eat lies - damning in all its plump shining glory - on the bench between them. There is not time to sweep it away; Idunn's eyes have long since lit upon it. "Odin Borson," her voice rings out as he sits - eyes downcast, face red, small feet not even halfway to reaching the grass below - before her, "so help me, if I catch you in the orchard again I will render your life as short as that of a hapless-_

_-mortal, fancy metal suit in shreds around him, faces Loki down - all brash insolence and alcohol-fueled false bravado - across a shattered room. The man stands his ground to the last, hardly flinching as a crazed Loki throws him out the-_

_-window in his own father's chambers, weeping. It is the only time in a very long adulthood he can remember weeping; at the news of King Bor's death. It is a peacetime luxury, a weakness wartime kings cannot afford. In short order he forces himself to buck up and move-_

_-on the long staircase, watching helpless as broken-and-put-back-together-wrongly Loki accepts Thanos' scepter and makes an awful promise that can only end in death._

Odin coughs in his sleep. While it barely serves to rouse him, it's enough to stop this- this insanity. This charade of not-quite-been and never-will-be. He settles carefully onto his broad back, hoping for relief – for all the good this is doing, he might as well not sleep at all.


	31. Decency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This follows the events of Decency, but the timing of Relief.
> 
> The guards sort out who's in charge. Maybe.

Heavy footsteps echo down the service hall. 

Wonderful. This time of night, after a long patrol, that can only be Skari; Halar would be hard put indeed to think of anyone he is less eager to see.

True to form, the big lieutenant is barely in the door before he starts in.

"So, the prisoner was _good_ for you, was he, before his audience? Was he good for you later, too, after I broke him for you?" The leer clearly audible in Skari's voice leaves far too little doubt as to his meaning.

Halar continues cleaning his armor. He has been dreading this conversation for days, knowing it was bound to play out in all its foul glory the first unfortunate time he and Skari were again assigned to duty together. He mentally kicks himself for staying late in the armory alone - he should have left with the other men, even if it meant rising unusually early tomorrow and finishing this thankless labor in the pale light of morning.

Skari walks closer, until he towers above Halar’s bench. "Too scared to answer your betters, recruit? Or are you one of those disgustingly coy types who are too _shy_ to kiss and tell?" Skari kicks at Halar's boot, knocking over the metal polish and sending a greave clattering away.

"Neither, sir," Halar offers blandly, though he actually _isn't_ the sort to spread word of his own (few, sadly enough) conquests, and that for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with shyness. "I just- I have no tale to tell." He bends to reach blindly (stupidly, yes) for the overturned polish, only to feel Skari's heavy boot-toe grind down firmly on his outstretched hand. The pain is sudden and shocking; Halar bites own his lip hard, only just managing to choke off a gasp.

"No tale, or no urge to tell it? Because I assure you I am all too happy to help with the latter," the big guard growls, shifting his weight forward. Forward onto Halar's already-throbbing hand.

This time he does gasp, despite himself. "No tale," he repeats, doing his best to ignore Skari's ugly chuckle. "I simply helped the pr- the prisoner" - he'd almost said _prince,_ barely catching himself in time; that could hardly go anywhere good - "to his cell, got the containment system situated, then carried on with my interrupted duties."

_Wrong choice of phrase, Halar;_ even as he hears himself speak, he is already cringing.

"Oh, so deeply sorry for the _interruption_ ," Skari snarls. This time he not only leans but twists his foot; the sharp crush brings smarting tears to Halar's eyes. "Of course you would have better things to do with your time. Better things than putting the prisoner's so-called _silver tongue_ to the test, surely."

That rankles Halar and stiffens his spine, perhaps more than might be healthy in terms of his own safety. "I would scarcely ask _that_ of a _prisoner,_ he huffs. He frowns up at Skari, finally making eye contact, lip curled in disgust. "Think what you like, I am no Chitauri scum. Now, if you will kindly take your leave of my hand, I have the rest of my armor to set right."

To his immense relief (and amazement, really – he was near sure he had a beating coming), Skari surprises him by stepping back. The wave of pain that chases blood back into his crushed knuckles is fierce and nauseating, but he clings tightly what little is left of his flagging composure.

Halar’s spate of better luck is short-lived, sadly; his unpleasant comrade makes no move to leave. Instead Skari invites himself to sit, sprawling gracelessly against the table with one long leg slung up on its top. "But why, young Halar? Why would you turn down such an opportunity, presented to you so generously? Loki is far prettier than any maiden you might win over, after all, and rumor has it both his preferences and his skills are rare indeed."

The guard's grin flashes nasty above his thick red beard. "He is said to go cheerfully on his knees or belly with but the least encouragement, even in better times, and to know quite well what to do in either case when he gets there." Skali winks. "And this time, above all, he was so very helpless." He sighs loudly. "But you mean to tell me you just walked away from all that promise and went back to your _interrupted duties?_ You disappoint me, Halar. Verily, you disappoint me."

In truth, Halar had spent much of that fateful evening in the battered prince's cell, helping set the snapped rib this very boot - the one staring him in the face from an arm's length down the tabletop - had caused. Freeing him gently from the awful shackles, cleaning the abrasions to neck and ankle underneath. Blotting bitter tears and saliva from the pale, bruised face and tangled hair. Talking quietly about nothing, just to break the silence, until exhaustion did its job and the prince's harsh, pained breathing gave way to soft snores.

But it had been simple basic decency, nothing remotely like desire, driving his actions. Decency Skari could not hope to comprehend, let alone honor. And besides, Halar has never felt _less_ like sharing his not-tale than he does right now.

Still, he’s not quite sure what comes over him: 

"Alas, sir, we cannot all hope to be such men as you."

It's a stupid, ballsy move. Halar just _knows_ he will regret it.

Sure enough: Skari coils forward, with a skilled warrior's dangerous grace, and sends Halar flying in concert with the resounding _CRACK_ of a well-aimed fist to the nose.

"Nice talking with you, recruit. We must do this again sometime:" Skari's bootsteps boom back down the hallway, fading at long last to blissful silence.

As Halar curls - rocking in agony, yes - on his side what seems a small eternity later, blood and snot yet streaming freely through the cupped fingers of his good hand to pool on the scuffed stone floor beneath him, he's a bit surprised to find he isn't regretting his foolish, brave words after all.


	32. Custody

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place a few hours after Only (in Banish the Light). If you are skipping Only, all you really need to know is that the two of them fell asleep in Heimdall's bed.
> 
> Loki has a nightmare and shizit gets real. Or is it brainwashed?
> 
>  
> 
> **WARNING: This one has some flashback whomp. It's more of a PTSD thing than a whomp-in-all-its-glory thing, though.**

_"No, not good enough. Not even close. The Master will never accept this." The creature - he knows it to be Chitauri by its accent, an officer by the cadence of its speech; he cannot see it, though, because he has been deprived of his vision by what he dimly hopes is some spell - lets out what he supposes must pass for a frustrated sigh, its chitinous plates clacking. "I am beginning to wonder if, pedigree notwithstanding, you are capable of this at all." It sighs again, heavily._

_Loki, hearing intensified by the loss of sight, notes the faint click of the dial and cringes; the thing laughs. "You don't like this? Pity. Perhaps you should try a little harder, so we can all get past this charade. Okay, enough time-wasting." Loki hears it settle itself, tries to sketch out a mental picture of it sitting – looming - above him. "You surely know how this works by now: We run through the set of questions until I am completely satisfied with your responses. Each time you fail to satisfy me, I boost this" - Loki hears a hollow thunk as the officer taps the box - "one level. And it has many levels. However, as I’m sure is also true for you, I would prefer not to be here all day; the Master will be very disappointed if you cannot get this done."_

_The device whirs to life and Loki is burning. Every bruise, every laceration, every bone-break, every scar - and by now they are legion... after this stint in custody he doubts there's more than a square inch of undamaged flesh anywhere on his body - lights up with incredible intensity, the original pain incurred with each new injury magnified a thousandfold. It’s been days of this, and he doesn't even both trying not to scream anymore, not to wet himself, not to retch. There is no point; the device will win in the end. Instead he curls helplessly in a ball, its center the wrist shackles that keep him pinned, and clings desperately to consciousness as he waits for the creature to begin._

_"What is your mission?"_

_"To retrieve the tesseract." Any hint of hesitation, any catch in his voice, will be rewarded with a click of the dial - another cursed level, another chance to feel his bones scalded from his sightless carcass entirely - and a return to the beginning. He's given up bothering to think he can't do this; what alternative does he have but to suffer it, after all?_

_"And why have you been selected?"_

_"I volunteered."_

_"Why?"_

_"To prove I can rule a people as a good and worthy king."_

_"To prove this to whom?"_

_"Odin Allfather."_

_"What is the price of this opportunity?"_

_"The tesseract, and my obedience."_

_"Obedience to whom?"_

_"The Master."_

_"And what is the Master's chosen name?"_

_"Tha- no, wait, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please. One moment. Please. I lost track, I did." Loki knows babbling will serve for naught, or worse, but it seems he can't stop his mouth from running on. "The Master's chosen name is Master."_

_"Loki, Loki. I'm deeply disappointed. You are not even making an effort today. Each time you fail even earlier than you did the time before."_

_Another click, and every nerve ending explodes in white-hot fury. Loki screams and-_

Heimdall instinctively springs to the defensive, startled from deep sleep by Loki's broken, guttural howl, but finds no evidence of real threat. Rather than attacking, striking out against his invisible assailant, the price curls more and more tightly in upon himself. His hands clutch unfeeling at the matted old sleeping furs, held rigidly in place as if by-

_-shackles tear at his skin as Loki fights against the overwhelming pain. He has failed again, and again - his brain seems to have lost any capacity it might once have had to form useful, coherent speech from thought._

_To form thought._

_Something in him snaps, and he feels briefly, incredibly cold. Soothed. Better. Good._

_"Stop that, Loki!" The officer sounds flustered. Angry. "You know you aren't to take that form here!"_

Heimdall watches in fascination as the dreaming, twitching, naked body before him turns Jotun-blue. Ridges stripe Loki's spine, his ribs. Intricate patterns scroll across chest and back and tense limbs.

Loki has never done this here; he's not shown Heimdall his true form since the day Laufey died, not intentionally and certainly not unconsciously. Heimdall knows this form because he _sees_ it but, no, this is real.

The Guardian is not sure what to do. Loki is clearly in the throes of something - what, a nightmare? – something in dire need of interruption, something it would be cruel to allow to continue. But the prince is dangerous ( _differently_ dangerous, he reminds himself) in this form and can't just be gathered close.

Heimdall watches on, torn, as Loki screams and thrashes about - never moving his hands - and a thick layer of frost builds on the bed around him. This can't go on.

A tankard. No, it's metal. Conductive. He casts around for something, anything, at last settling for a leather boot. "Loki," Heimdall says firmly, poking the prince's straining shoulder gently. "Wake up. You're having a bad dream."

He has to poke another two or three times before Loki snaps awake, jerking to half-sitting. Lost, dazed. Blinking quickly, over and over again, as though nothing around him makes sense.

"Loki."

The prince looks at his own blue, marked hands and starts violently, slamming back against the stone wall. He looks up at Heimdall, blood-red eyes wide, face twisted in horrified astonishment. "What- what happened?" He gestures frantically around himself at the icy furs. "What is all this?"

"Sh-sh," Heimdall soothes. "You're okay. You had a nightmare and turned- well, you dropped your glamour? Do you know who I am," he asks, a little frightened, as Loki continues to look more and more upset.

"Yes, Heimdall. It was just- it was horrible, and now this- and I'm- I'm sorry- I don't mean-."

"Sh-sh," Heindall tries again. "You're okay. I promise," he assures, and he means to make it so. "Can you- can you restore your-" (he almost says _normal_ , which would _not_ help things at all!) "Aesir form? You're too cold to touch just now." And then he holds his breath, hoping Loki doesn't react badly.

Slowly, slowly, a pale pinkish flush washes over Loki's skin. When it's over Aesir Loki slumps before him, naked and beautiful and terrified and shaking. Heimdall squats down with a pained grunt (it seems the burn on his thigh was in no way imagined – he’s going to need to deal with that later) to pull Loki close, then stands. "The bed's a bit too icy just now,” (which would be amusing, except for how it isn’t). “Here, just let me hold you for a bit." He sits, carefully. "You're okay. It wasn't real."

"The m- the monster was."

"I saw no monster," Heimdall chastises gently. He cuddles Loki close, dark, cool hair pressed against his chest.

"I couldn't see, you know. In the dream. And in custody. That was real."

A lot was real after the fall, Heimdall knows, some outside Loki's head and some only inside it. Collectively, it's far too much to fix tonight. All he can really do is hold the prince close, hoping the simple comfort of skin on skin helps take the edge off the worst of the rest.


	33. Forgive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place early on during Conflict, when Thor is home briefly between missions.
> 
> Frigga gives some unwelcome advice.
> 
>  
> 
> This is yet again not what I meant to write when I started, but it's what came out. So, here it is.

"But how can you _not_ despise him, mother? You _know_ what he has done." Thor strides furiously back and forth, all hot sparking energy, across the soft rugs warming his mother's study. "I do not understand," he cannot help but growl despite his best efforts at civility, "how, after everything, you can claim to continue to love him."

"Sit, please. Just sit. All this frantic marching about is making me tired." Frigga pats the seat cushion of the chair nearest her own. "I claim nothing but that which is true. While his actions sadden me greatly, I do still very much love your brother."

Because she is his mother, and because he loves _her_ dearly, Thor does sit. He even tries his hardest not to shift about, restless, in his chair as he waits for her to finish speaking.

She takes her time, choosing her words with great care; as ever, there will be no rushing her. He tries to be patient, tries to bear in mind this is easy for none of them.

At long last, she continues. "Thor, as you surely must understand by now, I do not condone Loki's actions. Regardless of his reasons, and of the many ways in which we all have - yes, you too," she adds as he starts to protest - "wronged him, he is a grown man who verily did and does know better. But be that as it may," - she sighs quietly; he in turn studies her face, surprised and saddened at how very drained she looks - "he is my son. He is your brother. I love him more than life itself. And more now than ever he needs our help. For my part, I do intend to give it. I hope you will in time desire to do the same."

Thor hisses, blazing anger flaring out of nowhere, hot and fast. "But he does not want my help, or yours,” he practically shouts. “In fact, he throws our attempts at aid back in our faces at every proffered turn. He has made his blatant disgust with our assistance beyond clear, mother. How many more times must I suffer his rejection before you will name it enough?"

She reaches over and lays her small hand overtop his own. "For me, to win my approval, you _must_ do nothing. I only hope that you will one day again _want_ to help your brother. Not for me, darling, and not for Loki - though I do think your help would truly serve him well. For yourself."

Thor bristles. "That is utterly ridiculous, mother. You know not what you ask."

"Here you must trust your mother, my strong one. If you cannot yet hold out your own hope, cannot yet see your own way clear, I would ask that you have faith in my wisdom until you do and can."

He frowns. Thinks. Frowns some more, harder, so much so that his face hurts. Try as he might, he cannot grasp how pushing yet again in vain to help Loki - how extending a hand to the wild boar only to have it viciously bitten off, again and again and again - is serving himself in even the smallest way but ill. In the end he caves: "I give up, mother. I fail to see how giving Loki anything further helps me in the slightest. And you know I do hold your wisdom in the highest esteem... but forgive me, mother; it seems I cannot give you this."

She squeezes his hand. Her expression is if anything softer, more loving, but he cannot help but feel that he has disappointed her terribly just the same. She squeezes again. "Thor, this anger you carry - what purpose do you think it serves? I ask you, who does it really hurt?"

The second part is beyond easy, so he skips quickly over the first. "Loki, because it means he will never see me again." He snorts. "Although as cold-hearted a conniving bastard as he has become, he may not even notice. Or care, if he does take note." He feels abruptly bold, clever, ready to take Loki on should his _monster_ of a sibling suddenly appear.

If his new-renewed confidence shows in his face, Frigga gives no sign. She is as sad, as serious as ever when she asks: "And does it hurt you not at all?"

Thor wilts a little.

He has missed a turn somehow.

Sometimes speaking with Frigga can be a bit too much like speaking with Loki, in that he finds himself caught wrong-footed far too often for his own liking. Still. He will not concede so easily. "It undoubtedly does, but not as much as the bitter sting of his continued rejection. Not as much as mourning him."

"You need not mourn him, you know. He is right downstairs. He has suffered a great deal, and unleashed much suffering upon others, but - talk to him, Thor. I do not think you will find him so greatly changed as you might fear."

"I do not _fear_ it," he blurts out, but as he speaks he knows it's a lie. Or rather, it's partially a lie... he's not sure which he fears more - that Loki is greatly changed, or that he in truth _isn't_ \- but his mother is right. He's deeply afraid, more than he has been of anything in ages.

"I cannot do it, mother. I cannot. I just- I cannot see him like this. I know not why, even, but I cannot." He feels panicky now, half-strangled by bleak and nameless dread. "Please do not ask me to."

He cannot meet her gaze, for fear of seeing bleak, awful, final judgment there.

But when she speaks her voice is still soft. Kind. "I will ask nothing of you, save that you think on what I have said. Just promise me this, that you will think on it."

"Aye, mother, I shall. I promise."

Truth be told; he is quite certain he will think now of but precious little else.


	34. Battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Dreams.
> 
> Odin comes to poke at Loki through the bars.

The guards snap to attention and then bow crisply as he marches down the stairs. He's pleased to see how disciplined they are, how they move in perfect unison; it's far too easy for guards this far from the public eye, this removed from the pomp and circumstance (and battle), to become lax. Sloppy. To lose some of their _readiness_.

Because in the end it really is all about readiness. Readiness to spring into action, not just in the dungeon or on the parade ground but in battle.

Odin makes a mental note to commend their commander. It's more pleasant than dwelling on the battle he is more than likely here to do.

A hush falls over even the noisiest cellblocks as he walks past. Odin looks neither left nor right. He is not here to sight-see, and the common criminals hold not his interest. Outside the farthest corner cell he turns and steps up to the barrier.

Loki is curled up on the divan, one hand hugging a shoulder while the other hangs limp at the wrist; a too-bony wrist jutting out awkwardly, arm pinned beneath his slumbering frame. Asleep like this, Loki looks impossibly young. Innocent. Odin can't help but see traces of the child - of the young prince Loki was before he became this- this menace.

He watches his adopted son - Odin, in his own thoughts, does not negate their familial relationship despite how he often does so aloud - sleep peacefully for quite some time. It's not until Loki half-rouses and rolls onto his back that the Allfather makes to disturb him.

"Loki."

"Mm?" Loki turns to face the barrier again, slowly, blinking and half-lidded-

-and is instantly awake - tense, angry under a thin veneer of _something else_ \- once he spots his visitor. "Odin, as I’m sure you must recall, I-."

Odin waves a hand, dismissive. "Yes, I know," he says tiredly. "You do not enjoy our little talks. Which is unfortunate for you, it seems, as we are about to have one regardless." Loki's eyes narrow; Odin ignores it. "I am here because I have been hearing concerning things about you."

"Really." Loki's laugh is a dry, mirthless rasp. "And surely you of all people must be thoroughly used to that by now."

Odin clasps one gauntleted wrist with the other hand, arms behind his back. He digs his fingers in hard. Fights the urge to roll his neck. "You could say that."

"Just did," Loki chirrups amiably, but his eyes are still cold and narrow. Odin waits and waits:.

And waits.

Predictably, curiosity wins out: "And what, pray tell, have you heard, your _vaunted grace?_ " – the sarcastic tone galls, coming so glibly from this mouth, but the Allfather lets it go - "My opportunities under which to cause you trouble are rather limited just now."

Not limited enough, it seems. "And yet you manage. The guards report you are insane."

"And am I not?" Loki swings up to sitting, elbows on knees, both hands dangling now.

"Your judgment is singularly awful. But, no, I think you only play at _crazy._ You are every bit as in control of your faculties, of your actions, as even am I mine."

Loki cocks his head. It's simultaneously endearing and infuriating. "That, I cannot deny." His lip curls into a wicked smirk. "But it scarcely speaks highly of your own condition, your majesty."

"Enough, Loki."

“Enough? I hardly think-.”

“Yes, enough.” Odin clamps down hard on his own temper. “You will stop this, now.”

"-or? Or what? Let's see." - he ticks off on long, near-skeletal fingers - "You'll clap me in Dwarven irons? Bind my seidr? Lock me away from all that I hold dear? Oh, oh oh, don’t tell me. Oh, I know! You'll have one of your bigger guards kick me senseless." Loki wets his lips ever-so-slowly, eyes locked on Odin's one. "But wait, there’s nothing new there. It's all been done. So I ask you again: _Or what?_ "

It would be far too easy to rise to Loki's goading. It's what the fallen prince expects, though - clearly - so Odin expressly doesn't. "I hear tell you are not eating much of the time; that you retch at the smell of food, that you scream in your sleep. That you burn yourself on the barrier as if by intent."

Loki wets his lips again. Smiles brightly, eyes hard. "And did they tell you I _jerked off_ " - leave it to Loki to make use of his time on Midgard learning only to be coarse - "just here, by the barricade? For everyone to see?"

_They_ didn't need to - Odin, attention caught by the late-night disturbance, had _seen_ that particular outburst himself, from the sex to the burned hands to the shattered sobbing. But Loki is goading again, so the Allfather simply says "the guards seem more concerned about your breakdowns than your pleasure.” And then it seems he can’t quite stop himself after all: “Although I might have hoped, growing up in this household, you would have seen fit to behave with a touch more class."

At that Loki _howls_ with laughter, head thrown abruptly back. "Oh, but I have _needs,_ Odin. Needs. And apparently you cannot rob the beast," he points out - wiping his eyes, all drama - when he's once again able to speak, "of its true nature after all."

It isn’t really funny. Still, Odin chuckles. "I think it safe to say Laufey would hardly be proud."

That, that of all things, _does it_. Loki's face twists into something akin to agony, the first genuine expression he's shown the entire visit.

"So _that_ is why you've come: To gloat. To remind me of my failings." Real tears streak Loki's pale cheeks.

"Hardly. I am simply here to follow up on concerns regarding your wellbeing. You will eat, Loki, or I will make you."

With that, he turns from the cell-front and strides briskly away. He’s done here.

But some things about their conversation do not sit well: _Have one of your bigger guards kick me senseless,_ Odin muses as he climbs the stairs. This, alas, is yet another battle he must pursue... and it is one that gives him no pleasure.


	35. Choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Malekith/Algrim backstory, set before Algrim is kursed.
> 
> Malekith remembers, and it's not easy.
> 
>  
> 
> I originally meant to pr0n here but the backstory was so long and sad that it didn't happen. XD
> 
>  
> 
> **NOTE: M for a some references to sexual acts. The action happens offscreen but the language is graphic.**

One of the things with which Malekith the Accursed is cursed is a very, very long memory. While his people are universally renowned for their recall, sure, he is exceptionally gifted even among his own kind.

Others may call it a blessing, but Malekith harbors no such misconception... it is a curse, pure and simple.

Another of his curses? Having been born into a role that leaves him only difficult, awful choices.

~

For the others, the old ways are but a collection of tales; the old stories, the ones we tell our children('s children's children, on and on). Malekith alone truly remembers what the world - what the universe - was like before the Light.

He remembers walking freely through the world, without fear and without pain. He remembers a time when his people did not have to hide themselves from the demon-cursed sun, did not have to stalk the dark reaches of the realms. Had not yet become night-crawlers; misconstrued, feared creatures decried in both myth and legend.

Children played happily together. Families were cheerful and prosperous. No one was hunted or hated.

There was no army.

There was no war.

Then the sun turned her baleful eye, her withering gaze, upon the Nine and everything changed.

~

Even the moon caused its share of trouble, reflecting as it did the sun's awful glare.

Still, in the early days and nights, the dark elves (suffered, yes, what with the light and the heat and the constant, debilitating onslaught of radiation; radiation against which - skin parchment fair - they possessed no natural defense, but) did their best to live peacefully amongst their new neighbors.

Until those neighbors - emboldened as they were by Svartalfheim's barren landscape, by its settlements' seeming daytime abandonment (a dark-needing populace lives out its myriad lives at night, after all), and by the easy targets its defenseless citizenry provided - began taking sore advantage at every conceivable turn.

By the time diplomacy had failed utterly and inter-realm relations had spiraled into steep decline, many children - generations of children - had been born into Light. The old ways, the good memories, were fast fading into legend. All these new generations knew was hatred, fear, pain. They grew up hard. Twisted. Changed. And Malekith for all his memories changed with them... it was that or die, really, and he just could not leave his people to fend for themselves alone.

~

When it got to be too much, he studied the work of those scientists and diplomats around him and took decisive action: Together with his advisors he raised up an army second only to Asgard's, no mean feat for a once-peaceful race hampered by the forces of nature at every turn. In concert, his team developed revolutionary healing technology - stasis, they called it, a deeply restorative machine-assisted sleep during which the inevitable sun-inflicted radiation damage could be wiped away - wholly responsible for their continued survival.

Last, and impossibly far from least, the dark elves mined the deepest reaches of their world and came away with an unstoppable force; the great semi-sentient power they later termed the Aether.

Finally, after centuries suffering under the Light, Malekith's people could once again dare to hope.

~

It was around that time Malekith first made Algrim's acquaintance. Coming into the armed forces from a trade background - in all these years Malekith has never managed to pry the whole story from him, but it was something to do with metallurgy - the big soldier quickly captured everyone's attention. He was smart. Steady. Dependable. Unfailingly loyal, too, Malekith quickly learned.

And unendingly inventive in the bedchamber, though Malekith didn't discover _that_ until quite some time later.

~

Through the first war of the Aether - Bor's war, as it became known, with its costly campaigns and devastating conclusion - Algrim rose steadily through Svartalfheim's military ranks. By the war's midpoint, he commanded a large, elite attack force; by the time its awful end loomed near, he had long since become Malekith's invaluable military strategist.

Malekith remembers one particular day - the brutal day they stood together, grim and disheartened, giving the order to sacrifice the infantry - as though it were yesterday. His hands still shake when he thinks of it.

That day, and the day his family died.

Malekith wasn't there for the latter - during wartime, a ruler by definition cannot be off skulking behind the action with his kin. It was Algrim himself who brought the horrible tidings, big hands and gruff voice gentle with sorrow.

Algrim, who proved himself as indispensable in grieving as he was - is - in battle; they labored along the front together all day, every day, as warriors must... but many a time nightfall saw Algrim cradling Malekith carefully, silent and uncritical as the tears poured forth.

~

Grieving turned to resignation, resignation to an ugly, festering thirst for revenge. If not on Bor, then on the fruit of his loins - the one-eyed Aesir king. And if not on Odin, then on _his_ spawn. However long it took, Malekith would wait and see it done.

With the help of his armies, and of stasis.

And of Algrim.

Following a similar arc resignation and cold, passionless waiting followed sadly after what had once been the fiery rush of battle. And it was in that endless expanse of waiting, perhaps as an inevitable consequence of their longstanding closeness in all other things, that Malekith and Algrim came to share not only deep, abiding concern for one another but a conjugal bed.

In retrospect - given how quiet and gentle the care Algrim provided during the long bereavement - Malekith perhaps shouldn't have been so surprised to find in his longtime friend and battle-hardened commander a tender, skilled, compassionate lover.

He truly _was_ surprised, though - most pleasantly so - with how completely, in yet another arena among so many, Algrim managed to be exactly what he needed.

 _Needs_.

From languid fellatio during times of peace to roughly fucking away the nerve-jangling adrenaline surge of battle, from days spent taking one another apart bit by slow, lovely, lingering bit to frantic, desperate hand-jobs on the bridge while the ship's crew rests in stasis nearby... Algrim has given him everything, and Malekith will truly miss this.

More than anything, though, he will miss his dearest friend.

Just like all the difficult, awful choices before it, this choice really isn't one.

But this time - unlike any time before - Malekith must go on alone.

And that, beyond any doubt, will be the hardest thing he's ever done.


	36. Science

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Onward - after Jane slaps Loki, before everyone leaves Asgard for Svartalfheim.
> 
> I figure Jane has to feel as dumb about touching the Aether as she looked doing it, no?
> 
>  
> 
> This has a few mild sex references. Very mild.
> 
>  
> 
> _I have a work holiday party RIGHT after work today, for which I have to be all dressy and shizit, so (no time to write/post later, and) here's a little pointless Jane/Aether bit early. :)_

_It's so beautiful,_ she thinks, running her hand over the relief-carved edge of the desk before her. Everything here is simply amazing - bigger, more stunning, more perfect in every conceivable way than she could possibly have imagined.

This is her life's dream, come more than true. As long as she can remember, Jane has always wanted to travel in space, to discover alien civilizations in the velvet expanse of the night sky. In all her childish imagining, though - and in all her disciplined science - she never once pictured anything like this.

It's astounding. Gorgeous beyond belief. And these people are nothing like the _space aliens_ she expected. Not that she has ever been a big _little green men_ proponent - the whole idea of Marvin-the-Martian-esque creatures attacking (or even just sweetly and politely visiting) earth has always felt ridiculous somehow - but she certainly never pictured such lovely humanoids. Decked out in fine metals and brocades, silks and leathers. Dwelling in eye-popping metal sky-castles.

Kissing her.

Leading her about this stunning place, gracious and warm. Showing her gardens full of strange-but-familiar trees and flowers, giving her space to explore.

Showing off their own science, at once so like and yet so unlike her own.

It's incredible. Humbling and exhilarating all in one.

And yet.

Over and over Jane asks herself: _WTF were you thinking?!_

She has mentally replayed the events of her ill-conceived stunt in the Asgard cavern countless times, always reaching the same unfortunate conclusion: No matter how she slices it, she was dumber than dumb. In fact, she still cannot believe she _stuck her hand in the Aether_ like the stereotypical blond girl from every low-budget horror movie ever made.

Everyone knows _that girl._ She’s the one who climbs cheerfully into the foggy-window’d car, or strolls unfazed into the would-killer’s house of choice despite the unlocked door or broken window. The one who pets the _cute, cuddly little alien beastie_ , only to have it roar to life, spout car-sized fangs, and make a meal of her _brainless idiot head_.

She's watched all those movies. Laughed, smug and utterly confident of her own intelligence, at all those girls. Seen it coming a mile off, every time. Winced and giggled at all that unbelievable stupidity.

And yet, when faced with the _alien beastie_ herself, she'd what, exactly? Yes, that's right – she’d _put her fingers all up in it._ And then tried to wipe it off.

Even Darcy - ditzy poli-sci intern Darcy, who's about as scientific as a koala - knows better. Darcy would have tased that sucker.

Tased it and blown up the known universe, probably.

But at least she wouldn't have touched it. _Touched_ it, like a toddler reaching out to feel the soft fluffy bunny.

WTF was she thinking?!

So, now, her whole experience – her whole time here - is- well, tainted. Marred by the knowledge that she likely won't survive her own life's dream. And even worse, this isn't dying for science - this is dying for stupidity.

As if that’s not enough, there’s more. To top this whole charade off, her present condition doesn't feel even the tiniest bit like dying. Like Jane imagined dying would feel, at least - and Odin's scientists say she truly is dying... and scientists _know_ \- because seriously? If this is dying – if this is what dying feels like – well, everyone would be doing it.

Seriously.

This is like a hot lover, a great vibrator, and all the best porn rolled into one. She could screw anyone - anything, even - she sees. It's taking all her self-control not to and, oh my, when someone touches her? Unbelievable. Orgasm-in-a-creepy-alien-cloud.

Thor is - sadly - as gentlemanly as ever, but even his chaste touch upon her fingers is enough to push her over the edge. And slapping Loki? Well. She's beyond embarrassed, thinking back on that, to know she would happily have climbed her least favorite Asgard resident like a tree. A sweet, stunning, lickable tree. In fact, if he was standing beside her just now, she still would. All of it. Climb. Lick.

Screw.

Loki.

Oh. My. God.

Even Ian, the doofy _intern's intern_. Although maybe Loki is worse than Ian? Or, for that matter - although she wouldn't breathe a word of it to a single living soul; in her mind Jane is officially as straight as a old-school yardstick - Darcy herself. Those lips. Those hands, always touching and grabbing. Those big, perky boo-...

Alrighty then.

Just thinking about it - any of it, all of it - makes her shudder. The good kind of shudder.

She has to draw the line at Erik, though. That would be a little too weird, even now. He's practically her _dad,_ after all. Plus, there’s Darcy. And Loki.

Now _Sif_ , on the other hand... she's a bit like a man, no? Or those guards... or Heimdall, with those stunning eyes…

Yes, if this is dying, it's almost worth it.

Almost.

But even so… she would really rather enjoy her fill of Asgard - not _that_ kind of fill, either - and then go home.


	37. Duties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some time (a few weeks, maybe even a few months) after Custody.
> 
> Some kingly duties are a bit onerous.
> 
> This one is a bit long, mostly because... well, it just is. A little bad language, a little implied sex....

Gods help him, if so much as one more sterling example of Asgard’s much-vaunted citizenry wants a favor granted today, heads are going to roll.

Seriously.

Heads. Will. Roll.

~

Once a month - on a Thursday, the irony of which is not lost on Loki - Odin holds an open audience with his subjects. This is a longstanding, time-honored tradition; one which dates back to the very start of Odin's long reign, has always served to differentiate him from the line of kings before him, and still proves incredibly popular.

Odin himself has always found ways to make it happen, often against long, long odds. Consequently stopping it now, when the Allfather had even managed to conduct the session immediately following Frigga's murder, would raise both a ridiculous outcry AND far too much suspicion.

So Loki-as-Odin finds himself obligated to continue holding these _fucking annoying_ open houses, just as Odin always has, and today's in particular is killing him. _Killing_ him. Whiny peasants. Bickering landowners. Greedy nobles. New babies. Petitioners representing every name of contract. 

Where do all these people _come_ from and, more importantly, how does one make them _go back there?!_

It's insane, and it tries Loki's patience like nothing else.

If he was king for real, he would delegate this to someone with infinitely more tolerance than he himself possesses. Which is to say, just about anyone. These days, at least, when he's using so much mental bandwidth acting like someone he's absolutely not. Sneaking around. Accommodating a set of schedules and processes not of his own making, not of his own choosing. Not tailored to his own strengths.

He can't remember being this tired and this frustrated, for this long, since his Unplanned Chitauriland Vacation... and - while he truly can hardly believe this himself - his current situation is actually in some ways worse: It's all mental, without the numbing distraction he hadn't even realized pain might provide.

"Your majesty?"

_Fucking awesome._ This whiny little baker - he _thinks_ the man is a baker, anyway - has asked a question... and faux-Odin didn't hear (absorb, at least) even one single bit of it.

Loki sighs. There's nothing to be done for it. "Can you walk me through that again? I want to be sure I am completely clear on everything before I render a decision," he says, trying very hard to keep the worst of the irritation out of his voice.

He's not even sure if he should hope for a long explanation or a short one.

Inside Odin's heavy, armored leathers Loki is a raw ball of frazzled nerves. Even Heimdall may have trouble getting him unwound this time.

Not that he's ever going to make it to Heimdall's cell, judging from the length of the near-endless line stretching out before him.

~

By the time he's finally washed his hands of the last mewling idiot and made his way to the dungeons, disguised as a kitchen servant pushing a food cart (laden with very real food; he's managed to work up quite an appetite trying to stay calm-looking all day and _not kill anyone in the process_ ), even Loki himself has to admit it: He is an absolute fucking mess.

He gets the door closed and sealed, barely, then quickly drops the glamour.

And then? He pretty much loses it.

He doesn't even know what he wants. Not that it matters; he's so frantic, so furious, so exhausted that he probably couldn't clearly communicate anything of use anyway. After about five tries at stringing together a sentence that's anything more than a garbled mess of curses, he gives up entirely and collapses in an angry, shaking heap on the floor.

This should by all rights be embarrassing, melting down like this in front of Heimdall of all people, but Loki's too tired to care. At least it's one fist he's pounding on the cold stone and not his head, right? That's good? And it's not like Heimdall hasn't _seen_ this side of Loki before.

Just not quite so _up close and personal._

~

Heimdall - wisely; even in this state Loki has to concede that - lets him go, saying nothing and staying well back, until he finally goes overboard with the floor-beating and audibly breaks a bone in his own hand.

It fucking hurts, oh gods yes it does, but it's a sharp, clean pain that cuts something loose inside him. Loki stops pounding, hurt hand cradled close, and flat-out bawls. Howls, great wordless torrents of sound that hurt his own ears. Sobs until his lungs hurt, until his eyes are swollen shut.

Eventually there's nothing left with which to cry - no energy, no tears. He lies there limp - a twitching, sodden lump, strings of hair plastered to his face - and wishes he could will himself out of existence.

"Long day, I take it." Heimdall's voice is soothing. Loki tries his best to answer but he's too done-for; he manages only a hoarse little moan.

"This is eating you alive," Heimdall continues. "In all these many years I never thought these words would cross my lips, but I- I am worried about you. How much more of this do you really think you can take?"

Loki rolls completely face-down, flopping directly into a slimy puddle of snot and tears. "I don't have a lot of options," he tells the floor. This is gross. He's gross. He needs to stop.

He's just. So. Tired.

Heimdall clears his throat and steps carefully closer. Loki should be offended, he thinks, that Heimdall is clearly most afraid of him _like this_. He can't seem to muster the energy for self-righteousness, though, which in itself is oddly worrisome.

_Grow up,_ he chastises himself, rolling to sit cross-legged with a quiet groan. He feels a bit like he's fought Thor. Pride before sense; the first burst of power cleans him up; the second dries the floor. Only when he at least _looks_ pretty normal does Loki finally heal his own hand. As he does so, he lets his seidr twist the bones a bit first just to feel the burn.

Something must show in his face, because Heimdall joins Loki on the floor and gently takes his hand. "Are you okay," Heimdall asks softly. "You are actually scaring me, a bit."

Loki dips his head to nuzzle Heimdall's wrist. "That's not what you usually ask me."

Heimdall shrugs, his wrist sliding against Loki's jaw. "This isn't the state in which you normally arrive."

That doesn't set well. Loki laughs, dark and bitter. "Oh, I've been a mess here before," he snaps. "It's what draws you, after all; the bastard prince so far fallen." He's frustrated and angry and hurting; the summation of which - as usual; he so very often finds himself in this mental place - leaves him wanting only to _destroy._

Heimdall, though, is a steady, unshakable rock. He doesn't take the bait, and he doesn't push Loki away. Instead he slips his free hand up into the mass of still-damp hair and cups the base of Loki's skull. His fingers are warm. Strong. Grounding.

The touch proves irresistible. Loki shuts his eyes and lets his head drop back into Heimdall's palm. Heimdall works small, slow circles, fingertips against scalp; it feels wonderful. _Calming_. To the point, in fact, that it short-circuits Loki completely. He groans as Heimdall - fingers still working their magic - pulls him up into a soft kiss, and then another.

"Helping?" Heimdall's lips brush Loki's. "Better?"

"Mmmmm," Loki hums against Heimdall's mouth. He knows what he wants now, definitively, and it's right here in front of him. He lets his own lips part; Heimdall (again wisely) takes him up on the invitation. The next several minutes are lost to kissing, first gently and then with rapidly-increasing fervor.

When Loki wants something, he wants it.

Just as he is thinking - barely! - of suggesting a relocation from floor to cot, though, Heimdall pulls away.

Loki squints, frowning. They're just getting started, this is by far the best thing that's happened to him all day, and _stopping_ is _not_ on the agenda. "Hm?"

"Is the Allfather- are you controlling his sleep?" Heimdall wipes his mouth with one hand, the other still holding Loki's.

_What?_ Loki blinks, only just fighting the urge to shake his head in violent confusion. "I- I don't think I can. The strength of Odin's seidr exceeds even that of mine." He's really not meaning to brag. And this is not what he wants to be doing. Loki huffs. "Is this what kissing me makes you think of? Do you in fact wish you were kissing Odin instead?" He mostly means it as a joke; he’s a little surprised when it comes out quite a bit more petulant-sounding than he (is reasonably sure he) intended.

"Of course not." Heimdall squeezes his hand. Sighs. "I just- when you came in here half out of your head tonight- well, I cannot help but worry about what lies in store for us - collectively and apart - when he wakes."

"Maybe he'll lock us up here together," Loki quips, but he knows he sounds stressed-out... and he feels stressed-out. Sad. Afraid. He can't imagine a future where- actually, come to think of it, he can't imagine a future. He swallows past the sudden tightness in his throat. "Look, can we not talk further about this just now? Like you said, it's been a long day. I'm sorry I imposed on you." He puts on the best sexy-pleading face he can manage. "I'd rather get back to what we were doing. Before the _talking_ ," he clarifies.

Heimdall hesitates. Loki cheats: He brings their entwined hands to his own mouth and wraps a warm, wet tongue around the nearest of Heimdall's fingers. "Or, if you can't bring yourself to kiss me again, I did bring dinner." He sniffs the air appreciatively. "We could eat."

And then, out of nowhere, what Heimdall'd said finally hits him. Yet again, for no real reason, it sits wrong and he feels his temper flare. "Wait. You care about what happens to _us, collectively_ when Odin wakes? Since when? I've thought you'd relish seeing me back in chains. Punished for" - he gestures between them - "this. For forcing you to do your duty." He's pushing buttons as hard and as often as he can, even though he knows full well doing so can only hurt him.

But Heimdall doesn’t fight back; he just grins. _Grins,_ and then shrugs. "This particular duty seems to be growing on me."

Loki lunges forward, wiping the smirk off the Guardian's face with a vicious kiss. This time, there's not going to be any stopping.


	38. Worries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This follows immediately after Duties.
> 
> Heimdall and Jane, separately, worry about what the future may bring.

"Isn't there anyone - beside Odin, I mean - who can get you into the dungeons? I mean, what if he falls into his sleeping thing? Does anyone unlucky enough to be locked up at that point just, what, starve to death?"

Thor wrinkles his nose at her. "Of course no one starves to death, Jane. Many access the dungeons, day in and day out - guards and servants most regularly."

"And those guards and servant-y people can't help you why already? Aren't you kind of like their boss?"

Jane hides a smirk behind a slice of drippy, hot pizza. Darcy, as (nearly, predictably) always, is quick to take her side... and right now it’s probably wisest to encourage her: In the course of her time with Thor, Jane has quickly learned ganging up on him is nearly guaranteed to render him extra-stubborn. The crown prince of Asgard - is he still the crown prince, even, now that he has resigned or whatever? Can you even resign your birthright? - needs to sincerely believe his choices are his own. Which means he won't fall prey to Darcy's needling.

"I mean, seriously, what good is being prince if you need to ask permission like a little kid just to walk around your own _house?_ But Jane, come on; it's so stupid," Darcy wails as Jane elbows her hard in the side.

Except, much to Jane’s surprise, Thor _does_ cave:

"Lady Darcy does make a good point, Jane Foster. Father only, very specifically, forbade me pay a visit to Heimdall. He did not say I was forbidden to visit the dungeons, or forbidden to stroll about the palace. Perhaps, were I to do so, I might yet learn something of interest - or find someone to convey a message - despite not seeing the Guardian with my own eyes."

Jane chokes on a little bit of pizza, partly for real and partly as a distraction... and as a way to give herself a moment to think. She needs to feel this out, turn it this way and that in her head, see if it's going to implode.

"But Thor," she cautions, "if Loki is alive... doesn't that mean he played another trick on you? Are you sure you're okay with that? You were pretty upset last time," _and the time before that, and the time before that, and oh my goodness, the time before that!_

Thor frowns. "Truthfully I cannot say. But I must know- if he is alive; I must know it. What if he needs me?"

 _What if he doesn't want you,_ Jane thinks... but she knows far better than to say so.

~

Afterwards Loki, sated and finally calm, sleeps sprawled across Heimdall's chest. Heimdall, fingers tracing lightly over the scars criss-crossing Loki's back and shoulders, worries. While he knows the larger part of what Loki says is untrue, often spectacularly so, he could _feel_ the truth lurking in the prince's assertion regarding Odin. That, and Loki lies much less often in those situations where doing so makes him look bad, especially when it comes to those things he truly believes _matter_. It's comparatively rare, therefore, to hear him underestimate or make light of his own seidr.

So, if Loki claims Odin simply sleeps, Heimdall believes it.

Believes it, and worries.

Heimdall has known Odin for thousands of years, hundreds upon hundreds of mortal lifetimes. For all that long history together, though - for all the oaths, for all the debts incurred and repaid - Heimdall cannot for all the Nine fathom what the Allfather's reaction to any of this might be.

He gently strokes Loki's wild, still-damp hair. The prince is a thing of beauty, even now - a longstanding knife-fighter who moves with a dancer's grace, who fucks with an astonishing mix of skill and abandon. And joking aside Heimdall was being nothing but truthful earlier - Loki actually _is_ growing on him, now that they have had a chance to get used to one another and to their... changed circumstances. The prince is a tangled mess of contradictions - chilling apathy and blazing hatred, confidence and terror, profound certainty and lost desperation - and Heimdall is both pleased and horrified to note sympathy is insidiously eroding the disdain with which he once regarded Odin's problem son. Seen from up close, Loki's psyche holds the mesmerizing allure of shattered crystal, of melting hoarfrost. Of leaping flame. Heimdall knows he should back - no, run, with all he has - away before he is sliced to ribbons.

Burned.

Devoured.

Utterly consumed.

He might still be able to save himself - to tell Odin he was compelled, commanded. Forced. That he was unaware Loki was not the sitting king.

That none of this happened at all - all of it, the twisted manufacturing of a failed mind. A feeble attempt at deflection, a calculated stab at blame.

But as he runs warm hands over Loki's body, its lithe muscles slack in _trusting_ sleep, Heimdall knows: He cannot – can no longer; could never - do such a thing. Not anymore, not now that he has come to know Loki as _Loki_ , rather than as an annoying liability to be dealt with, a burden to be borne.

He strokes the side of Loki's face, smiling sadly to himself as the prince shifts sleepily beneath his fingers. He curls forward and kisses Loki's temple, then down the long curve of a too-sharp cheekbone. When he kisses the tip of Loki's nose, the prince yawns and blinks drowsily up at him. Smiles. Kisses back, slowly, thoroughly, all soft lips and insistent tongue.

 _Never leave,_ Heimdall thinks, one hand in Loki's hair and the other sliding down to cup the muscular curve where buttock gives over to thigh. _Never, ever leave._


	39. Passage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place between Choices and Care; immediately following Frigga's death.
> 
> Thor has some unexpected feelings at Frigga's funeral.

As he stands there alone in the reverent crowd, watching as his mother’s funeral boat is readied for its last journey, Thor cannot help but think it - though doing so pains him greatly, as he holds no place in his heart for his brother anymore, and he is still very, very angry - _Loki should be here._

It is the perfect night, if one can even claim such a thing, for a funeral. The air is crisp, the sky is crystal-clear. The universe stretches out before them, the heavens bright with sparkling stars. It is a special night, the sort of night where the entire realm feels full of promise and one has the sense one can accomplish anything.

Except, on this particular night, all Asgard is gathered here to bid its final farewell to the fine lady who has been perhaps its most beloved queen.

_And,_ Thor thinks over and over, _Loki should be here._

~

Thor barely remembers childish life, early life with his parents before- well, before Loki. It was such a short time, so very long ago. He does recall feeling a bit put-out - on regular occasion, in childhood and somewhat beyond - because Frigga often sided with his baby brother. Angry - disgusted, horrified - though he is, Thor thinks he now understands why… and can't help but think perhaps someone should have taken Loki’s side more often.

~

As boys the princes had a series of caretakers - nursemaids, nannies, tutors, coaches. Of course; they were royal-born, and Frigga had her duties to the crown. Still, she managed to spend - quite surprising, in hindsight, now that Thor has learned more of the ways of his world - a good amount of time doting on her boys, and Thor never once doubted her love for them. Each of them, both of them. Although, as they grew throughout childhood and become young men, it was increasingly clear she had far more in common with Loki.

There may have been a few times he was jealous, yes. Whenever Loki managed to get himself hurt, which was fairly often, the world ground to a screeching halt. Mother never told Loki big boys don't cry. She never told Loki not to hit Thor, never admonished Loki not to be too rough with his brother. And she oohed and ahhed over Loki's budding seidr like she never did over Thor's sparring.

But Thor had Odin's favor and that - coupled with dear friends reminding him often that Loki, what with all his seidr and his tricks, might as well be a maiden - compensated for a great deal. Perhaps more than it should have.

~

There were good times, though, too. Happy times… or, if not entirely happy, at least memorable times. The beautiful summer afternoons the three of them spent lazing about, freed from their lessons hours early because Frigga maintained it was _just too nice to be inside._ The even-more-numerous lunchtimes spent playing in the palace gardens; their mother, with her skirts spread out across the soft-bladed spring grass, setting out the bountiful picnic spread as Thor and Loki chased after one another, cavorting round and round and round until they collapsed in a dizzy, giggling heap.

The week Loki taught Thor what he swore was a famed dwarven prayer, one that young Thor - not normally the best at memorizing, no, but Loki was ever a persistent teacher - proudly recited in front of Frigga and Odin at dinner. One that turned out to be a bawdy recitation of sex terms and curses, carefully selected by his baby brother in return for Thor's having publically mocked his sibling’s infatuation with the palace library. One that got them spanked pink-bottomed over Odin's knee, one after the other.

The festival where Thor won his first joust, handily knocking a much larger, older, more experienced Volstagg on his back in the dirt. Frigga stood along the railing, rather than sitting up in the royal box, young Loki balanced on her shoulders for a better view. The crowd erupted in a huge roar, excited to see their budding crown prince unseat such a skilled rival. Thor turned to look across those assembled; his mother and brother were clapping and cheering in wild abandon, their faces shining brightly with excitement and pride.

The night Loki, newly come by some truly impressive spellwork, had been surprised - or so Thor'd thought at the time - by a rather drunken big brother... in said brother's quarters, balls-deep in Thor's love-of-a-lifetime (of the week) as she screamed _Loki, oh Loki._ It wasn't until Thor'd punched his little brother clear into next week that the girl'd vanished - as Loki's head hit the fireplace surround and he collapsed insensate to the waiting rug - in a shower of green sparks. That time, as they spent the evening worrying in the healing rooms, it was mother's turn to curse. Her boys (fortunately, from Thor’s perspective) were by then far too big for spanking.

Loki and Frigga standing together, proud and beautiful and noble, at Thor's intended coronation. Well, until things went bad... the first part of the day was full of happy memories, and what came after – awful as it was - has somehow failed to sour them.

_Never doubt that I love you,_ Loki had advised... and for the longest time Thor had managed not to. 

And while his own faith in Loki had ultimately faltered, Frigga's never had. She held out hope for Loki's redemption to the very end. To _her_ very end.

~

Thor hears the whoosh as the oil-soaked rag ignites, sees the flight of the arrow. Watches through a hazy blur of tears as his mother's funeral pyre catches, the shot sure and true. Stands transfixed as a veritable fleet of funeral boats follow shortly behind her, guards who will - through their own bravery, in defense of the dungeons and their realm - now escort Frigga on her passage to Valhalla's shining halls.

In honor. In glory. In the blinding light of love.

As Frigga ascends to take her hallowed place among Asgard's constellations, Thor - tears now overflowing, streaking his cheeks - reaches unthinking for his little brother's hand.

His brother. His little brother. His mother's darling, her younger son.

Loki.

Thor chokes back a sob, hating himself a little for crying about this, now, after everything: Loki, unknowing, languishing in his cell.

Loki should be here.


	40. Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Loki and Heimdall have started to worry about Odin regularly.
> 
> Loki needs a holiday.
> 
> This one either needed to stop here and be a little short, or go on and be very long. Time - and coming to the idea too late in the day - dictated the former; there may be more at some later date.

It's tempting, it really is. And it really, really should not be, which is... frightening? Disturbing? Instead, it’s just a little worrisome. Mildly concerning.

His own utter lack of anything remotely resembling discipline or judgment should horrify him.

It doesn't, though. Not anymore.

It's almost as though what ails Loki is contagious.

Loki, smile bright and genuine for the first time in nearly as long as Heimdall can remember, stands by the table bouncing on the balls of both feet. "Please? It will be such fun. And you won't be cold, I promise. Like I said, I've found _the most_ -."

"-beautiful cave in all the nine realms, with its own hot spring and steaming mineral pools," Heimdall finishes because, yes, he _was_ listening. "You know it is not the cold that worries me."

And it isn't the cold. While he has not had prior cause to visit Jotunheim in person, Heimdall has of course stood (until recently, which also should horrify him and yet no longer does) for thousands of years at the portal feeling the frost giants' realm with its icy blasts and frosted storms. And many Aesir have spent time there, in wartime and in times of peace; too, Heimdall has no doubt Loki can find or conjure any warm garments or supplies necessary.

Nor is it Loki's Jotun form. Heimdall can _see_ the Jotnar in Loki at all times - whenever Loki is not cloaked from Heimdall's _sight_ entirely. He is long used to the idea of Loki being Jotun - as used to it as he is used to there being a Loki at all, truthfully, as that little squalling baby was just as blue as is Loki deep inside today. Moreover, Heimdall finds the prince's blue and pale pink forms equally- well, _alluring_ is probably the best word for it now, since he has somehow gone and let himself get way too involved.

But that - _you look fine to me either way, really, you do!_ \- might be a bit of a hard sell, especially with Loki’s own concerns over his _monster_ heritage, and it gets them into all sorts of ugly territory - he saw the birth, and the abandonment, and all the life that followed… including many childhood slights, and many childhood sins, and the stint with the Chitauri - so Heimdall says a silent _thank the Norns_ when Loki fails to bring this particular topic forward for examination.

Instead, the prince stops bouncing and frowns. "You're seriously worried about Odin? Really? After everything? You're imprisoned, in solitary confinement, for all eternity thanks to your acts of high treason against the throne. You've elected," - _not exactly_ , Heimdall thinks, but it's true enough in principle - "to expand the standard definition of _solitary_ to include _with the undead second son,_ whom you know is playing Thor and the entire realm for false.”

He pauses for breath, shaking a lecturing finger in Heimdall’s face. “Oh, and you're spending your time with that second son alternately talking - more treason, as often as not, I might add - which you are not allowed to do, and fucking him senseless - something I do greatly appreciate on several levels, don't get me wrong, but - which I'm quite certain, despite its not being spelled out precisely in Odin's law books, you are not allowed to do. All this," - Loki swings both arms in a great all-encompassing arc, knocking a beer stein over and catching it with seidr just in time - "and yet you are worried that Odin might... might what? Wake up while we're gone? Because clearly sneaking off to Jotunheim for an overnight holiday trumps anything you've - _we've_ \- done to date. Clearly."

Loki makes a number of excellent-sounding, well-reasoned points, which taken together is just further proof his crazy is contagious. Heindall gives in, chuckling, even though part of him _is_ still worried. "You're right, of course. There is only so dead the Allfather can smite us, after all."

Equally true, _of course_ , is that _dead_ is perhaps the most appealing of the many things Odin could choose to make them. But Loki _is_ right: What's done is done and there's hardly gain in pretending otherwise. That, and Loki is smiling happily again, and Heimdall will do far more than is wise to keep it that way.

"So,” he says by way of surrender, "tell me, what's your plan to get us out of here?" Loki had been so excited earlier, talking so enthusiastically about the _what_ ; he'd skipped the _how_ entirely. Even at his most reckless Heimdall cannot let that go unremarked.

Loki grins. "I'm going as Odin, of course. You are going as the lone Einherji I've selected to accompany me. He is a nice lad; he found my body on Svartalfheim."

Heimdall's stomach lurches. "You- you did not-. Please tell me you did not-…"

"Oh, delicate Heimdall. So much concern for _one Aesir man_. But, no," – Loki’s long-fingered hand closes lightly around Heimdall's wrist - "I did not kill him. He fell to Malekith's forces. I just borrowed him afterwards."

That's better, albeit still a little shudder-worthy. He's not going to press for details. "Okay." Heimdall says, tensing in spite of himself. "Now show me."

Loki does.


	41. Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a continuation of Plans.
> 
> Here's a little more of Loki and Heimdall on Jotunheim.
> 
> It's kind of M for sexual- thinking, I guess you could call it.
> 
> Please note that it's been a long day - it's nearly 11:00pm and I have not even eaten dinner. So, if my editing is sub-par, don't shoot me. :)

Just the smallest fraction of a second after it's too late to reconsider, he panics - what if, as a borrowed Einherji, he cannot _see?_

Heimdall, despite his many years of service, has never once been placed under a glamour. While both Frigga and Odin are - _were_ , he reminds himself sadly - certainly capable of so doing, there was never a need.

The Guardian in his sworn purpose needed most to be visible, as himself. From an outsider's perspective, his looming presence _was_ his role... and his broader capabilities required nothing but his own form. His own skills. _Skills he has just let Loki trick him into surrendering without so much as a fight,_ he thinks with rapidly rising dread-

-but as the shimmer of the Bifrost fades into nothingness Heimdall realizes he does still have both sight and _sight_ (the former rendered nearly useless in the shadowed dusk, sure, but the latter strong as ever) at his disposal.

That, and he realizes his feet are _freezing_. He hops from one to the other, springing back and forth with far too little grace, trying gamely to warm himself. "Loki," he pants when he's reasonably sure the terror has drained back out of his voice, "might I have something warmer for my feet? My own boots, perhaps?"

"You can have your entire form back, actually," – for a brief moment Heimdall is freezing cold everywhere - "and some furs. Better?"

It _is_ better. Swathed in thick pelts Heimdall finds he's almost cozy, just cold close around the eyes, nose and mouth now. He turns around to smile his thanks and _gasps:_ Even in the near-darkness he can see it's no longer Odin's bulk beside him, nor the prince of Asgard as Heimdall has long since become accustomed to seeing him. No, this is Loki at- at his _wildest_ , silhouetted strong and tall against the moonlit snow.

Heimdall opens his mouth to speak, fully intending to say something stern and useful about getting themselves to shelter. What comes out, though, is neither: "Gods, _look_ at you," he breathes instead. No," he rushes out as Loki flinches and starts to turn away, "you- you are lovely. It- you- you look different this way than you do when I _see_ you through your Aesir guise, though. Different than I expected."

"I look" - Loki corrects as he stretches both arms out in front of himself, contemplating, lip curled in disgust - "like a monster. Like the monster I am." He takes two long steps back.

"Loki, no! You look like- yourself. Just-," Heimdall falters, groping helplessly for an acceptable turn of phrase, "more intense." He instead steps forward, closer, unraveling the distance Loki has taken pains to stretch between them. "May I?" He holds a hand out, fingers - peeking out among his furs - hovering just shy of the prince’s bare blue chest.

Loki shrugs, and then wilts a little. "I can't guarantee," he says, voice cracking, "that I won't hurt you."

_That_ may just be the most succinctly accurate summation of _all things Loki_ Heimdall has ever heard. "So be it; I do not care," he says - and, right now, he doesn't. "Please?"

At Loki's nod Heimdall touches the blue. Loki's chest is cool, though still much warmer than the surrounding air - not nearly cold enough, despite the warning, to burn. The skin is softer than it looks... more resilient than its pinkish counterpart, but not the least bit rough or leathery. He very much wants to feel it under his teeth. 

Instead Heimdall drags his fingers down, grazing the interesting swirls and lines. When he reaches what would be the level of Loki's waistband - it's not; Loki is in a leather loincloth of sorts which rides much lower, nearly dangerously so - the prince twists away.

"Don't."

Heimdall reaches carefully for Loki's shoulder. Lets his hand drop back to his own side when the attempt is batted aside. "Loki?" He's not sure where he took a wrong step.

"It's fine," Loki huffs, sounding anything but.

This game, Heimdall knows - he waits.

Loki sighs. "All I've done in- in this form is walk around. I don't know how it" - he talks as though his body, his beautiful wild blue self, is an object. A garment. A pair of boots or a coat. The idea makes Heimdall unexpectedly sad, almost painfully so - "takes to pleasure. I don't know if I _want_ to know, even." Loki straightens. "Let's walk. I'd like to show you the cave."

Heimdall follows behind, hands buried deep in his furs to keep from _touching_. He would _love_ to take the prince like this - to taste the cool expanse of Loki's belly, to see if the blue cock darkens to purple - like the markings, nails, and nipples - when teased erect. But he is not going to try anything... unkind. Unkind and stupid; Loki could simply leave him here to die, in the event killing him instantly didn't appeal.

If Loki needs time, Heimdall will give him time. As much time as he can.

~

Walking in the deep snow takes practice; Heimdall finds he can't devote nearly as much energy as he'd like to eyeing the firm, rippling, muscled blue buttocks just ahead. Not unless he wants to land face-first in the snow, or worse. Keeping apace with Loki’s long strides is exhausting; he arrives at the cave sweaty and... down.

Until they're floating on their backs in the perfect steaming water, eyes on the faraway stars.

It's breathtaking, much the way the view from the observatory is breathtaking. He's speechless; when he floats too far, accidentally bumping up against Loki, he can barely force out a faint "sorry."

"I'm not." Loki floats up behind and beneath him, long arms wrapped across Heimdall's chest. _Warm_ arms; when Heimdall finally tears his gaze from the glorious Jotun heavens and dips his chin, Loki's hands skim pink and flushed across the surface.

Heimdall asks first: "Now may I touch you?"

Loki snuggles close, soft lips brushing the shell of Heimdall's ear. " _Please._ ”


	42. Respite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows on immediately after Blue. Apparently I cannot get off this Loki/Heimdall kick.
> 
> Loki and Heimdall need a little break from it all.

By all rights the steam rising off the deliciously warm water should obscure the view. It doesn't, though - evening has since turned to night and it is full dark now, the Jotunheim sky a rich, velvety black. The stars above sparkle bright and clean, their light catching the water's surface in hundreds upon thousands of tiny gleaming points. It's stunning. Heimdall rarely gets to honestly say _I have never seen anything like it..._ , but the sentiment certainly applies just now.

He wonders briefly if Loki is tinkering with the natural order of things. _It wouldn't be the first time,_ he thinks with a rueful smile, turning his gaze to the cave entrance - pitch black against the snow alongside the pool - and (not entirely accidentally) exposing his neck to Loki's searching mouth.

"Please," Loki whispers again, breath warm across his collarbone.

The soft skin of Loki's forearm is slick beneath Heimdall's wet fingers. He catches the slender wrist and gently brings it to his mouth. The water, when he licks a drop from Loki's fingertip, is faintly salty; it’s mineral-rich, the taste heady and dark and reminiscent of blood on the back of his tongue.

Loki shivers despite the heat, fingers playing over Heimdall's lips. "Turn around," he directs, voice quiet against Heimdall's shoulder.

He wants to. Very much so. But he knows if he does this will turn into yet another onslaught, another rough battle. Not that he is in any way immune to the tremendous pull of the power that courses between them, but this one night is a rare chance to - patiently, slowly - take all the time together this- this thing they share deserves. Heimdall knows from extensive, painful personal experience that Loki possesses considerable talent when it comes to hiding from prying eyes. Consequently, this particular – perhaps only - time does not have to be a rushed, clandestine prison fuck. They have privacy; they have opportunity. They should enjoy themselves.

He smiles against Loki's hand - "No" - then takes a deep breath and submerges himself, ducking out from under Loki's arms in the same smooth movement and swimming swiftly off across the pool.

Loki cheats; when Heimdall surfaces yards away, opposite the cave mouth, he finds Loki _right there_ and catches a faceful of water. He splashes back, balancing gingerly on the rocky bottom, catching Loki mid-laugh and leaving the prince drenched and spluttering.

They haven't laughed together like this, relaxed and open, for an age; not since the prince's early childhood, before Loki learned to survive by hiding deep within himself. They’ve never really laughed together, sharing something and meaning it, as grown men. Heimdall’s careful not to think about it too much – there’s something deeply sad there, and he is not in the mood for sadness.

He watches as Loki steps up onto a large rock, the water lapping barely at knee level. The prince rakes dripping hair back from his face and stands there, naked and beautiful and grinning, water streaming off his flushed body. When he curls two fingers, beckoning, Heimdall – this time - doesn't say no.

"This pool has splendid statuary," he offers instead with a sharp smile as he swims up to Loki. "Look at this work in particular," he adds, sliding both hands up Loki's slippery-wet thighs. "It is most impressive." He plants a loud, sloppy, enthusiastic kiss on Loki's lean stomach, just inside one prominent hipbone, then ducks away as the prince tries to steer his mouth closer. "Come down from there before you freeze." He reaches up to grab Loki around the waist and hauls him back into the pool squirming and shrieking.

They lose their balance and both end up underwater, coming up splashing and coughing almost as hard as they're laughing.

The poolside nearest the cave, worn smooth and free of rough edges by lifetimes of water, slopes gently up and away; Heimdall manhandles Loki up against it and manages to pin him there. Without resorting to magic, Loki cannot slip free of his greater size and weight; what starts as rough struggling quickly turns to writhing one against the other, panting and hard and _wanting_. 

The Guardian loses himself in Loki's hands and mouth and hot, slick skin for far longer than he means to; it's not until Loki braces against the poolside, wrapping first one long leg and then the other around his waist, that Heimdall very reluctantly makes himself stop.

He opens his eyes, blinking slowly. Loki's eyebrows pinch together in a worried frown. In the faint snow-reflected moonlight, his eyes look as black as the sky above. Heimdall leans in and kisses him again, less frantically but with no less heat, before breaking off with a gentle nip. "How are you doing?"

"Are you enjoying it here," Loki asks instead of answering. "I want you to like it." He still looks worried.

_Like it?_ Heimdall just wants to fall off the face of the world and stay here forever. "The sky is beautiful," he says with a little smile. "But I want to know that you are okay. We can stop if you need to."

"Stop?!" Loki's voice rises, nothing short of a squawk. "Why would we stop?" He looks so incredulous it's comical, and Heimdall makes no effort to hold back the happy laughter that bubbles forth.

"I did not mean I _wanted_ to... although" - he takes Loki's wrist again, inspecting - "you are getting a little-... shriveled." He smirks.

Loki _grinds_ against him - "Not where it matters ," he growls - and then laughs himself. "It's a fair point, though. Shall we take this inside?" He waves a hand carelessly and smoky torches flare; well back from the cave mouth Heimdall can just make out the glow of a banked fire and, comfortably nearby the embers, a large pile of furs. "I promise you'll be warm enough," Loki adds... and then he's standing ashore, reaching out a helping hand.

Heimdall takes a last look up at the brilliant stars. "Your offer is most tempting, your highness, but it _is_ awfully nice out here." He smirks again, even more broadly. Loki's palm catches him full in the chest and sends him sprawling back into the pool.


	43. Council

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Frigga's death but before Thor frees Loki... so, sometime after Passages and just before Mission.
> 
> Thor holds his war council with Sif, the Warriors Three, and Heimdall.

"But you cannot trust him, Thor," Sif implores. "He thinks only of himself. He always has."

They have been going round and round on this same point for nigh on an hour now, and Thor is well beyond sick of it. He slams a big fist down on the tavern table, sloshing Fandral's mead all over Volstagg's hand. "Stop it, all of you. You have made your collective point. I full-well realize all of you dislike Loki, and I am not blind to your reasoning. In fact, you must by now know I hold little remaining faith in him myself, but unless one of you can suggest a worthwhile alternative," - he looks slowly around the table, glowering at each of them in turn - "we will have no choice save to include him."

Sif growls in clear frustration. "He will betray you! I am certain of it." She leans in over the table, face inches from his own. "You claim otherwise, but your love for him colors your judgment and I will not have you _die_ as a consequence."

In the heat of the moment he almost pulls rank on her, realizing just in time that doing so will only strengthen her argument against him. He instead takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. "Sif, I truly appreciate your concern for my wellbeing. I do. But I must ask that you let this subject go. We have not the time for further debate; Malekith could be back at any moment, with little to no warning. I insist," he adds as she opens her mouth to argue further. "Now, can we please get back to reviewing our plan?"

Sif slumps low in her chair, scowling, arms folded across her chest. She makes no further mention of Loki, though, so Thor lets her attitude stand unaddressed. They are all of them greatly stressed by the events of these past few days, after all, and he has asked for their help - a woefully abuse of their long friendship, really - in engaging in this treasonous plot. Of course they are edgy.

"I understand there is much risk, I truly do. Of all of us, excepting perhaps you," he acknowledges with a nod in Heimdall's direction, "he has hurt none more than-..." He stops himself. "Sorry, but that is enough of this! Malekith will not rest until he has his Aether... or is eliminated. If we do nothing, we shall all die. Loki or no." Thor looks at their worried faces. "You have all agreed - at great personal risk, which I do appreciate more than you can know - that Odin's proposed course of action- of _inaction_ is folly." Thor pauses; the others nod solemnly, even Sif. Good. "So, again, let all of us accomplish what we have set out to do. There is yet real hope we may succeed. Now, set aside your differences while we review."

Sif plays the first part in this plan; with some reluctance he calls on her, hoping she will stay on topic this time. They have already wasted long minutes they ultimately may not have had to spare.

She sighs loudly. "I am to track the guards as they bring the mor-" - at Thor's sharp glare she hastens to correct herself - "the Lady Jane Foster her next meal. Once her detention chamber is unlocked, I will incapacitate said guards - thoroughly, but not fatally, unless one happens to be that ass who groped me in the sparring ring two weeks ago," she clarifies with the closest Thor's seen to a smile since this whole mess started. "And then I will escort the Lady Jane to you."

"And if you run abreast of difficulty you will do your best to keep both yourself and Jane Foster safe." He does not want to lose anyone else to this fight.

She nods, curt. Professional. "Of course. You have my word."

"And you, my thanks." He gives her a winning smile; it doesn't seem to help, so he soldiers on. "I will release Loki from his cell and take him into my own custody; when the time is right," he continues in the same breath, not giving anyone a chance to start back in on the Loki-related griping, "we will all take our places and seize the abandoned enemy ship. Fandrall?"

Fandrall's portion is short and (to listen to him describe it) simple - he flies the light warships often and excels in hand-to-hand combat, so he's completely confident he can turn an apparent chase into an in-ship ambush and handle the guards without any loss of life (or control). To Thor's annoyance he does manage a few digs at Loki along the way, but it's nothing worth calling out and Thor finds himself with no reasonable choice but to let the whole thing lie.

He finishes the last over-warm swig of ale and stands. "The guards will bring Jane Foster's midday meal in about an hour. Make your final preparations, all of you." As he turns to leave, he makes one last stop in front of Heimdall. "I do not think Odin will kill you for this but, if he does, rest assured you will have died a warrior's death." He clasps the Guardian's shoulder. "We will expect seats saved for us in Valhalla."

Heimdall laughs. "If he kills me, I am of a mind to let you - all of you - stand. But let us hope he does not, shall we?"

They nod in unison, to a one.

~

After Thor takes his leave of them Sif leaps to her feet, fuming. "This is ridiculous. No plan dependent on Loki has any hope of succeeding. He will kill Thor, and Malekith will kill us all soon thereafter"

"I am not so sure that is true."

Everyone snaps around to look at Heimdall. "Please do not tell me you have gone mad as well," Fandral snarls.

"I assure you I have not. I _have_ , though, witnessed far more of what transpires between Loki and Thor than has any one of you. If Loki wanted Thor dead, he would long since have made it happen."

"Or died trying," Sif shoots back with substantial venom.

Heimdall nods. "Or died trying, yes," he agrees... though he personally doubts it would work that way.


	44. Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Respite. I haven't decided exactly how soon after yet.
> 
> Heimdall hits too close to the mark.
> 
> Weird angsty damaged-Loki oddness. If you are triggered by vague self-harm, give this one a pass.

"You've been coming here regularly since the- since you and Thor stopped Malekith." Heimdall slowly traces Loki's collarbone with his fingers, back and forth. "Are you coming to like this place?" He can easily guess the answer, but Heimdall wants to get Loki talking – there are some things he wants to _know_ \- and a fairly neutral topic feels like the safest place to start.

"Mm." Loki shifts against him, settling himself more comfortably. They're leaning up against a boulder just inside the cave mouth, Heimdall with his legs spread and Loki reclining between his muscled thighs. They're messily bundled - together - in a tangle of furs and sheltered from the wind; with his front against Loki's warm naked back Heimdall is, as promised, not cold in the slightest. In fact, the whole arrangement is quite pleasant. And, cozily tucked inside their fur cocoon, his hands are made amply free for exploring.

Which is exactly what he's doing, actually - he's enjoying learning what Loki likes, to the point it's getting quite difficult to maintain a slow, undirected pace.

Still, Heimdall does want Loki to talk. He tries again, this time with a more open-ended question. "What drew you here?" He means the realm, not the cave, but he'll take what he gets - if he crosses over the invisible line into something too close to interrogation, Loki will near-certainly shut down out of suspicion; this will accomplish nothing.

"Hng." Loki shivers as Heimdall’s fingertips skim over sensitive skin. "I- Thor- I- gods, you are making it very hard to concentrate," he huffs.

Heimdall smiles into Loki's hair. "Perhaps that is my intent,” he says, even though it isn’t. “We are _getting away from the pressure of our respective changed stations,_ are we not?" He nuzzles Loki's temple. "Go on."

"You know what happened: Thor asked my help - Odin's help - in repatriating an ice beast. It fell into Midgard during the convergence, and Thor's mortal friends wanted to see it well done by." Loki snickers. "Apparently it was a bit of a war hero. Ate a dark elf, Thor claims it did. But I’m sure you know that as well."

"But you elected not to send it via Bifrost?" This is the part that interests him; it's not like this prince to be particularly hands-on.

Loki stiffens almost imperceptibly, then catches himself and stretches lazily. If he thinks Heimdall missed it, though, he is dead wrong. "I wanted to see- to see it safely home."

"And?"

"Why" - Loki heaves a big sigh - "must there always be an _and?_ "

Heimdall waits. He sometimes feels as though he's spent his entire life _waiting_. At times like this, however, he knows it is a skill that serves him most well. As he waits, he runs a hand up Loki's chest and wraps fingers loosely around the prince's throat. Wonders idly if he could incapacitate Loki fast enough to fend off the powerful threat of seidr.

This is one of the things he very much hopes he never has occasion to (be forced to) find out.

Loki sighs again, pushing into Heimdall's grip; beneath his thumb Loki's pulse is racing. Interesting. He tightens his fingers, just slightly. Keeps waiting.

Before too long, his patience is rewarded. "I wished to see Jotunheim again. It had been- quite some time."

The Guardian strokes gently up and down the long column of Loki's throat. "And did you see whatever it was you sought - whatever you hoped to find?"

"No." Loki's voice is tiny, and he doesn't even bother - even realize he needs, maybe - to hide the tension. He swallows hard. "I didn't."

"And is that why you keep returning?"

A small shrug, and then Loki twists out of Heimdall's grip and burrows down into the furs. Heimdall lets him go.

"Is it something with which I can help?"

Another shrug, from within the nest of furs; abruptly, Heimdall is certain he knows what this is about. "You put the beast down here?"

"Near here, yes." Loki's voice is muffled. "Maybe twenty minutes' walk."

And here they are. Heimdall gives it a shot, prompting, not realizing until it's too late that he may actually be doing something unforgivably stupid: "Good thinking. This spring-fed pool is in a very remote area; I am not sure I have ever seen so much as a single Jotnar this far from civilization. Your heroic beast will be quite safe here."

Sure enough.

Loki rolls abruptly out from among the furs, scrambles frantically to his feet, and flees the cave – flees Heimdall - at a dead run.

It's dangerously easy to forget how broken Loki is, and far too cold to safely chase him. Not like this, at least. For a short while Heimdall hopes the prince will wise up - will back down - and reappear... or splash dramatically into the warm water. When neither of those things happens, though, he reluctantly pulls himself to standing and hurries off in search of his clothes. He dresses deliberately at first, still hoping to hear Loki's voice behind him, and then with increasingly fear-driven haste. At the cave mouth he calls out several times, but it's useless; the frigid wind just whips the words off into nothing.

There is really no choice.

Windblown snow has wiped away most traces of Loki's flight, but Heimdall still has his _sight_ by which to navigate.

It's not more than eighty paces before he stumbles onto Loki collapsed in the snow, naked – stupidly, suicidally - still in Aesir form. Heart leaping into his throat, Heimdall drops to his knees beside the still body. "We need to get you inside right now," he says to no one; Loki's head lolls as Heimdall scoops him, limp and ashen and silent, from the frozen ground.

~

It isn't until they are back in the cave, Heimdall stripped and curled around Loki - Loki, freezing cold and motionless - in the furs nearest the fire, that he spares the time to feel for a pulse-

-and when he finds one, thready and weak but unmistakably _there_ , the enormity of what _could have happpened_ utterly wrecks him; Heimdall, as good as alone in this alien place, gives in to a tidal wave of emotion so massive that it threatens to pull him under and drown him.

He feels like he's been crying for a lifetime when Loki finally stirs.


	45. Amnesia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After Cold.
> 
> Loki can't quite figure out what ails Heimdall.

"Loki? Can you hear me?" Heimdall sounds... weird. Wet and clogged, almost as if he's been _crying_ , but that's ridiculous because Heimdall never cries.

"Loki!"

The frantic edge in Heimdall's voice startles him; Loki jumps. Which _hurts_ \- he aches everywhere. "Mm?" is the most he can manage. He's completely exhausted. "Wha-?"

He means to ask what happened, but he can't get it out somehow. And then Heimdall _is_ crying, quiet sobs that shake the guardian's whole strong frame.

"Loki, do you understand what I am saying?"

He frowns, more than a little puzzled, then nods. Even nodding hurts.

Heimdall is hovering over him, carefully touching his shoulder, the side of his face. From the sound of it, the Guardian is still crying.

"Do you know where you are?"

Loki blinks and looks around. "Jotunheim," he rasps, then coughs. "Thirsty," he adds, because he is. "Sick?", he asks as Heimdall extricates himself from their covers. Loki doesn't remember coming down with something or being ill, but he can't come up with another plausible explanation for- for whatever is going on.

Instead of answering him, though, Heimdall poses a question of his own: "What is the last thing you remember?"

"Thank you," Loki makes himself respond, politely, as Heimdall puts water to his lips. It's cool and refreshing and he wants to guzzle it; his stomach, though, protests after a scant few mouthfuls and he has to stop. He thanks Heimdall again, not sure why he feels so very much like he ought to, and then-

-realizes he cannot remember the question. He's certain there _was_ a question; he is; he knows it, but the thing – the question - is utterly _gone_ and he's rather afraid to let on that he’s lost track of it somehow. Instead, Loki stalls; he snuggles down into the nest of furs and lets his eyes drift closed.

"Loki." Heimdall jostles him lightly. So much for stalling, for sleeping. "What is the last thing you remember?" _Oh, right._ There's something uncomfortable - Fear? Frustration? - in the Guardian's tone; sorting it out, though, feels like far too much work just now. At least Loki has the question handily in mind again. He makes himself think (which isn't easy). And think. And think, until Heimdall is not the only one frustrated anymore.

"Swimming," Loki finally manages. "We were swimming." He thinks again, extra-hard. "And then sitting talking." He stops for a moment to catch his breath. "Did I get sick? Am I sick?" He twists to look up at Heimdall, fighting hard to ignore his own discomfort.

After a painfully-long pause, Heimdall sighs. "That is probably not the best way to describe it, no," he replies.

Loki gives him a moment to elaborate... but gives up and rolls gingerly onto his back once it’s obvious no further explanation is going to be forthcoming. "I feel like I've been beaten and left for dead," he points out with a small chuckle. But Heimdall doesn't smile; in fact, his eyes well up again instead. Loki feels a quick jolt of fear. "What happened?"

Heimdall's eyes, more red-orange than gold in the glow from the embers, close tight, wetness beading along the long lashes. "You went out into the cold, alone, in - in this form." The Guardian swallows loudly. "Undressed. You- you very nearly died," he adds, voice breaking towards the end.

"That is incredibly dumb. Why would I do that?" Loki has no recollection of this at all.

Heimdall shrugs, arm brushing Loki's shoulder. "You were upset. I- I am not certain that you- that you did not wish to die."

Well. Loki can't deny that it sounds like something he might say or do. He doesn't feel that way _now,_ though; just tired and kind of battered. "I'm- I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?"

"You do not remember even the least bit of this? For real?" Frustration is plainly evident in Heimdall's voice now. "You could have killed us both."

"Sorry?" He is, really, but he can see in Heimdall's face that it's not enough. "Look, I don't know what to say. I don't remember this. Not at all. But I am sorry for- for scaring you, and for putting us at risk." He shrugs. "But I'm so tired. Do you think that you can sleep?"

He watches something too close to anger spread over Heimdall's features and opts not to wait for an answer. "Can you lie down with me, at least? I need to sleep. Maybe I will remember more afterwards. I really am sorry," he says again, partly because he is and partly because he badly wants to rest the night wrapped in not only furs but in Heimdall.

Whatever is wrong, _touch_ will help.

He watches anxiously as Heimdall fights some sort of obscure mental battle with himself, then pats the furs and wriggles enticingly. "Please?"

When he stretches - painfully, with difficulty - up to plant a soft kiss on Heimdall's lips, Loki doesn't get a kiss in return. But the Guardian _does_ burrow under the furs - muttering things along the lines of _against my better judgment_ and _be the death of us all_ \- and press against Loki's back. When Loki nestles insistently up against him with a contented little purr, the Guardian clings to him so hard it hurts.

"Never, ever do that again," Heimdall growls.

Loki hums.


	46. Repair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the same general timeframe as Mimicry; this takes place not long after the end of the movie.
> 
> Did Malekith die in the end? I'm thinking not.
> 
> In cartoon canon, dark elves can restore missing limbs via sorcery... and they are tough creatures who have been around for Aesir generations (so, thousands and thousands of years). I'm thinking he just got set back rather thoroughly, maybe?
> 
> And we don't know where the lucky black hole grenade victims ended up... they could be in a pocket dimension with lots of small pebbles.

The very first thing of which Malekith is aware, when he comes back into himself enough to possess any awareness at all, is pain. Terrible, excruciating pain, from so many places at once that he can't hope to localize it.

The next thing to surface is anger. He will pay Asgard's crown prince back, with interest, if it's the last thing he ever does. But such sweet revenge must wait; for now there remains much else to do.

At least he is someplace where it's blissfully dark. In darkness, especially, he has at his command considerable sorcery; sorcery enough, in combination with the last of the Aether still resident within, to heal even the gravest of the damages the Odinson has wrought upon his body.

But doing so takes energy, which he must work to collect, and time. Time, he clearly has aplenty. What he does _not_ have - and even in this half-dead, half-mad state he feels the loss keenly - is his ever-faithful second-in-command.

_Algrim is far beyond my reach, at least for now,_ he thinks, and then laughs - his body spasming painfully with the effort - at the awful irony of it; he _has_ no reach, after all.

At least for now.

First, more than anything, he needs to sleep. He opts to expend a little energy in the greater pursuit of more; uses sorcery to dull the pain into little more than background hum, and to still his own mind.

~

When he comes to, some indeterminate amount of time later, he is full to the brim with seething, roiling power. Excellent. Perfect.

Next things next, though: He needs a solid plan.

Malekith ignores the flaring pain and thinks back through what happened. He knows he has lost one arm at the shoulder and the other closer to the elbow; practically speaking, the latter will be easier to restore. He should start there, then, as he knows he's more or less entombed in the wreckage of his ship and getting out will require both sorcery _and_ hands.

Sorcery and hands and the not-inconsiderable smiling down of Fate.

It's as he struggles to repair his arm that Malekith is initially made keenly aware - by his unhappy stomach, and his deep, burning thirst - that he has not taken in anything approaching sustenance in a very long time. Without any way to eat or drink, he can only absorb energy from the ground itself (and that's a bit of Fate's smiling, isn't it, that he's lying on the ground to start with; had he been _in_ the ship as it fell, his long life might well have reached its end... with Algrim lost, and their mission incomplete).

It's not a fast process, and he can't hope to keep up when he's not resting.

As he lets the sorcery unfold, he _thinks_ in order to distract himself. Even so, the pain in his regenerating forearm is all but unbearable. The Aether spreads through the newly-knitted arteries and veins like acid.

At first, he dares not waste the energy to scream.

Towards the end, though, he loses all ability to make screaming (or not) a choice; anguished howls pour from him, one after another after yet more, ripped from his throat by compulsion whose demands he cannot even begin to fight.

And then it's done. He lies gasping and sweating. Once the shock wears off he flexes his new fingers just to prove he's once again able, ignoring as best he can the burning ferocity of the pain, then lets himself collapse back into healing sleep.

~

When next Malekith awakens, the new arm _itches_ ferociously. Not that he has anything to _scratch_ it with, yet. Which is perhaps fortunate - if he claws off his skin, it will just mean that much more to heal. Instead he harnesses the Aether to pull water out of the air, letting it pool in his cupped new palm; the liquid is bitter, acrid, unpleasantly warm, but when he's drunk his small fill he feels better.

Rebuilding the other arm, the one severed at the shoulder, may be the hardest thing he's ever done. Well, save sacrificing his troops on Asgard, and giving Algrim over to the Kurse... but both of those trials were struggles of a different nature.

He means to make a single go of it, but ultimately can't; somewhere in the midst of knitting the sinews just below the elbow, where the complex muscles driving the hand find their origin, he slips unwittingly out of consciousness.

~

It was a bad place to leave off; when he comes to, everything is hopelessly knotted. It's a good thing his stomach is empty, as he can't even roll onto his side to retch. Still, he carries on as best he can; finally, after much misery, the job is again done: Malekith has two working hands, with enough sorcery left to harden the skin and protect them against sharp edges, when he once again allows himself to give in to the need to rest.

~

Now that he's physically whole again, Malekith's next order of business is getting out of the wreckage. With what remains of the Aether he could command enough force to blast his way out but, as he hadn't the time or focus to identify his whereabouts before the ship crashed down around him, that approach seems rather foolhardy.

No, he will carefully work his way free, at least until he can ascertain his location... and that starts with sitting up.

Which is in no way easy.

And then with conjuring something to eat, which is easier. It's just a simple flatbread - his system isn't used to food anymore, and there's little gain in wasting the energy to pull together something wantonly self-indulgent only to vomit it right back up - but it's wonderful just the same.

He chews it slowly, tiny bite after tiny bite. When he's finished, stomach as full as he can safely stuff it at this juncture, he finally feels strong enough - emotionally, even more than physically - to do the one thing he's been avoiding: He sends his Aether-enhanced awareness out into the Universe, searching for any trace - any spark, any least tiny hint - of Algrim.

The search – exhaustive, disciplined - takes a very long time. He's tempted to give up well more than once; to decide to stop, rather than have to face the certainty that his dearest companion is gone from him forever.

But then he catches the smallest, faintest flicker. A flicker that grows stronger and stronger the longer he - fervently, carefully - focuses his energy upon it.

_Hold on,_ he thinks. _Hold on. Whatever it takes, whatever the price, I will come for you._


	47. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place immediately after Amnesia.
> 
> Loki and Heimdall talk it out.

_He races frantic and shaken out of the cave mouth - into the wind, the bitter chill, the blinding swirling snow - without so much as a backward glance. He's moving fast, furious at being so easily read; the momentum of his running carries him some twenty (or maybe it's more like thirty; it's not like he's counting!) paces out into the wild before judgment even has time to kick in._

_Except by that point, in this temperature, it's too late; nothing remotely approaching good sense ever really does kick in at all._

_Instead, pretty much from the moment he's out in the thick of the Jotunheim night beyond the last vestige of shelter, sensation - the ground, the air, everything so cold it burns - wipes away all conscious thought. Everything around him is a swirling wall of dirty white. He tries to stop and survey his surroundings but the ground is scaldingly cold and his body just wants to keep running._

_For a few more strides he manages to do just that, before the bitter cold takes over and running becomes staggering becomes walking more and more slowly becomes maybe only standing there; he's not sure. At first he's shivering violetly, painfully so, in great shuddering waves that make his teeth clack together. He hugs himself, rubbing his numb arms with numb hands, and tries to remember where he is... why he's here._

_Nothing comes to him. He- he must be on Jotunheim - the Chitauri world isn't snowy, and neither was the Void - but he's so cold. Too cold. Something has gone wrong. He gamely tries again to look around but everything is the dull-white nighttime glow of the inside of a blizzard. His mind is fast becoming equally dull, slow and puzzled and useless._

_And then, mercifully, he gradually stops shaking. He's actually, happily - no, blissfully - warm. He feels good. He walks on a little farther, or at least he thinks he does - something must still be wrong with his boots because he can't really feel his feet strike the ground. But it doesn't matter, because he's warm and comfortable. And sleepy - very sleepy._

_Maybe he should take a nap before continuing on to - well, wherever he was going. He must have been going somewhere, right, because he's standing? Except maybe he's not, because it feels a bit like he might be lying down? Maybe that's why he's so warm - maybe he's napping already and this is just a dream. He tries to throw off his furs - he's too warm now! He’s roasting! – but his hands can’t seem to feel them._

_Oh well. He curls into a neat little ball and drifts off._

_"Loki!" He's startled awake by someone close by his face yelling. He tries to push away but something is pinning him down. He screams-_

-and wakes for real, completely disoriented.

"What- where- Heindall?", Loki splutters; he’s curled on his side with the Guardian lying behind him - up on one elbow, leaning over to look him in the face – expression pinched with what looks like concern. "I- I had the weirdest- I- I think it was a dream?" Loki really isn't sure of anything anymore. Frantic as he is, his mind still feels hopelessly sluggish, hampered and sleep-fogged.

"Sh-hh," Heimdall soothes, gently combing Loki's hair back with the other hand, the one not bracing his own head. "Yes, you must have been dreaming. You screamed and woke us both. Are you okay?"

Loki shakes his head violently, trying to clear the fog. The dimly-lit cave wobbles and dips. "It was the weirdest- well, nightmare, I guess. Not one I recall ever having had before."

"Hm." Heimdall doesn't press for details, just cards through Loki's hair... fingers gently touching Loki's sweat-streaked face, patient and calming, until he finds himself eventually able to continue explaining on his own.

"It was odd and- stupid. Illogical. I dreamed I got mad at you and ran naked out into the sn-"

The _snow._

_Oh. Fuck._

_Never, ever do that again._

Heimdall's careful fingers stutter at Loki's temple; it’s the only sign at all that Loki's comment hits home. For a long, awkward while they are both of them doggedly silent. Finally, Heimdall clears his thoat: "Tell me exactly what you remember from this dream," the Guardian directs; slowly, clearly, his voice only very slightly flatter than it was long minutes prior.

Loki takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes tightly. Forces himself to concentrate as best he can. He - uncomfortable, speech abnormally stilted and halting - recounts the nightmare in as much detail as he can make himself recollect, stopping occasionally to address a short question or to clarify, eyes squeezed tight closed all the while. It's not 'til he gets to the part about screaming that he dares twist and look anxiously up into Heimdall's stony face.

When Loki finishes the Guardian exhales sharply, only noting: "Your nightmares are normally fairly accurate." He doesn't say it like he's asking, but Loki _knows_ it's a desperate question nonetheless.

So: "'Mm-hm," he hurries to reassure. "Well, of course, they're dreams... they're often fantastic or jumbled-together in ways that didn't actually occur in the universe outside my head... but the real events about which I dream? Those, indeed, do tend to be quite accurate." Loki's brain is finally feeling less and less foggy, now that it's getting some real use.

Heimdall's eyes narrow. "So you ran out in the snow because you were-..." he hesitates, sighing. "What, you were upset that I had guessed you- you worried about not seeing any Jotuns? Worried knowing what that might imply?"

Loki has to look away, off towards the embers, but he does ultimately make himself nod. It _is_ true. Painful, difficult, awful... but true.

Another dragged-out silence, broken only by their breathing and by the near-silent movement of Heimdall's fingers through Loki's drying hair.

"And you were not trying to hurt yourself?", Heimdall asks at last.

Was he? It didn't feel that way in the dream. "I- I don't think so," Loki tells the guttering fire. "I think I- just misjudged."

Heimdall snorts, but he sounds as much cross as amused. Like he might hit Loki, if he- if the Guardian was someone more like Thor. "You _just misjudged._ "

Loki nods, face hot against the furs. "I did say it was idiotic... back when I didn't know or remember what I'd done, even." He swallows, twice, feeling like he might cry. "And I said I was sorry. I am." He turns, braving another look at Heimdall's storm-cloud frown. "Sorry, that is. And idiotic, apparently." And cuddly; he does his best to wriggle closer, the back of him brushing Heimdall's solid bulk from chest to knees.

"And now you are cheating most heinously," Heimdall observes, not sounding quite as mad anymore. "I should punish you soundly for taking such an awful risk, you know."

Loki squirms. "Probably."

"How are you feeling," Heimdall asks, expression speculative, after yet another uncomfortably lengthy pause. "Did sleep help? You complained of being quite sore earlier."

"Better." Loki stretches - long, luxurious - like a sleepy wild animal, rubbing pretend-accidentally against Heimdall's front in the process. "I feel pretty well healed, actually." He circles an arm back, pulling the Guardian's face close, then stretches up for an open-mouthed kiss.

Heimdall condescends to kiss him back this time. When they stop to catch their breath, the Guardian laughs. "You realize I cannot help but wonder how wise it is to _punish_ you by taking you into my bed."

Loki smiles. "It's _my_ bed, actually. But don't look at it that way; consider it naught but due reward for the suffering through which I have put you." He shifts again, rubbing teasingly against Heimdall’s groin.

"I may see fit to do precisely that," Heimdall groans into Loki's mouth. "Indeed, I may."


	48. Reward part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Healing.
> 
> Loki and Heimdall get back to what they had planned, before Loki went and messed things up.
> 
> This has some relatively mild sexual content with extremely mild BDSM overtones. If you don't like that sort of thing, give it a pass.
> 
> _Why is this "part I"? See the in-chapter note at the end._

Part of him _does_ want to punish Loki - the prince is a spoiled brat, even after everything he's suffered (and all the suffering he's caused, for that matter), and is long-overdue for some real _consequences_ \- to simply roll over in the nest of furs, turn his broad, unyielding back on his badly-behaved companion, and drop back off to sleep.

But Heimdall knows, as Loki's slick mouth works hot and demanding against his own, that he isn't going to be able to say no to this. They both could have _died_ \- Loki very nearly did, and Heimdall would not survive long trapped here alone - and knowing that he can't find it in himself to deprive the prince of anything.

In the end he doesn't even bother pretending to try.

He pulls Loki over and drags him close, lips tracing cheekbone to temple. "I will not ask you to promise, because I have come to know you far too well for that, but- just know that it will hurt me greatly if you die," he mouths against Loki's ear, following with a wet swipe of tongue. Loki writhes against him, all grabby hands and frantic mouth.

Suddenly, Heimdall has an idea. Loki _did_ imply - if not admit outright - a bit of punishment would be well-deserved, after all. He pulls back a little, smiling to himself as Loki slithers closer. It's a good idea, really. A wonderful idea. Nothing irks the prince, after all, like not – promptly - getting his way.

"Get my belt," Heimdall commands.

Loki freezes mid-nip, startled, then laughs. "Get it yourself."

"Excuse me? You are hardly entitled to take that tone with me just now." In actuality Loki - by virtue of seidr, if not birthright - is in every sense entitled to take any tone he'd like, but Heimdall is reasonably certain he can get away with the reprimand presently. If anything, Loki is practically _begging_ to be reined in.

Sure enough - Loki pokes one slim hand out of the furs, only to have Heimdall's soft leather tie belt leap into it. After a long, searching look he hands it over, forehead pinched in obvious trepidation. "You're not going to whip-," he starts off, voice shaking a little.

"Of course not," Heimdall cuts in. "On your face," he adds sternly, sitting up and giving Loki an encouraging push; after the briefest hesitation, over into the furs the prince goes. "Good. Grab your elbows."

"Wha-?"

"Just do it." Heimdall keeps his voice Guardian-steely. He's a little surprised when his delivery works, honestly, even given the odd mood Loki is clearly in. Consequently, he goes slowly - binding Loki's forearms one to the other with the soft length of leather, giving the prince plenty of time to protest and change his mind.

There isn't any protesting, though, and when he rolls Loki over onto his back - arms pinned beneath him in the deep furs, back arched, long expanse of chest and belly exposed and defenseless - the prince's eyes are dark and heavy-lidded.

Loki licks his lips slowly, then smiles. "This is new."

Heimdall smiles in return. "I have done quite a bit of suffering in the past few hours. I believe I may require quite a bit of rewarding.” He looks at the embers. “Can you stoke the fire like this," he inquires, "or will I need to do it for you? I do not want either of us getting chilled- again."

Loki winces; yes, it was a mean thing to say but Heimdall isn't sorry. Not after what happened earlier. Loki closes his eyes; the embers hiss and shift and the air surrounding the makeshift bed is near-instantly comfortably warm.

"Much better, thank you." Heimdall strips the uppermost layer of furs completely away, leaving the prince exposed in all his naked, half-bound glory. "Oh, yes, much better." He looks Loki slowly up and down and back up, taking his time, smiling again as he sees the pale cheeks redden. "You do make a truly lovely reward."

~

Loki can only hold Heimdall's gaze for so long (which isn’t very) before he finds himself twisting his head to the side and burrowing his flaming face in the furs. "Gods, stop," he rasps, but of course when he sneaks a peek Heimdall isn't stopping.

Instead, Loki feels the Guardian's hands close - lightly, lightly - around his ankles. "Spread your legs," Heimdall directs; Loki thrashes his head back and forth, burying his face as best he can, but at a gentle reminding tug of the ankles he does let his feet be slid slowly apart.

Enough so for Heimdall to kneel between his calves, muscles shifting and rippling in the firelight.

There is nothing here the Guardian hasn't seen (in better light, no less), no place the big hands (and more) haven't touched, but Loki has never before been _studied_ so intently (by anything that wasn't about to make a meal of him, at any rate, and in the least pleasant sense possible) and it is _killing_ him. He knows he's squirming around like a fidgety little child but he can't manage to _stop doing so_ , even (especially!) when Heimdall begins stroking the very tips of all ten fingers and thumbs delicately up and down his calves.

"Sh-hh," the Guardian whispers as Loki has to bite back a whimper. "I am not going to hurt you." Teeth sunk in his own bottom lip, Loki nods. He knows that, he does. He's just so keyed-up - and so flustered, which is not a state of being to which he is the least bit accustomed - now that the drugged stupor of his misbegotten outdoor adventure has finally dissipated.

Heimdall's fingers trail lightly up both thighs; before he can stop himself, Loki moans and hides his face again.

"No," Heimdall teases quietly in a tone of voice Loki wouldn't have guessed he possesses, "we will have none of that. Look at me. Yes, just like that. Good."

 

**A/N - this was part i of ii. If you want to see where it goes from here, the rest is chapter 2 of Banish the Light. If you'd rather skip the details, we can sum it up as "they screw and then go back to sleep" without, er, missing any key plot points. Nothing to see here, people; move along.**


	49. Outreach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place right at the end of Repair.
> 
> Algrim heeds the call.
> 
> This one is a little short - lots of holiday cooking and scrambling around, not much time for writing. :)

It's an elemental pull, similar in force and character to that which the moon holds over the tides. It has been there nearly as long as he can remember - which is a very, very long time; before the Nine existed as they do today, before everything in the Universe became light-poisoned and noxious - and he can no sooner deny it (if he could indeed ever want to, which is far beyond his capacity for imagination anyway) than he can deny his own heart's urge to beat.

_Except he should no longer have a beating heart to start with._

His memories of what took place during his stretch of kursed berserker service are distorted - present and accounted for, but warped and blurred and unnatural. Even allowing for that, though, he is _certain_ he remembers the Sword of Surtur ripping through his chest cavity.

Back-to-front, of course, because that least spawn of Laufey's only ever was a coward.

And he remembers that event being followed – at once, before the pain even had adequate time to register - by the ripping, rending force of a miniature singularity.

He should be dead and gone, far beyond all reach.

And yet here it is again, more insistent; the call. Mournful, hopeless; far sadder than he has ever known it to be.

He moves his hand ( _hand! He somehow still has a hand to move, and the control needed to move it!_ ), searching. Doing so requires tremendous effort, yes, but any discomfort is utterly lost in wonder. He can move, he can, and he is beyond amazed to discover he still make a thing like movement happen.

He touches fingers to face, shrunken arm and shoulder muscles shaking with the strain.

Wonder of still greater wonders! It is his _own_ face again - thin, sore, skin stretched over bone and lips chapped and peeling - and not the face of the monster. The monster he willingly became, it is true, in the service of the one who calls him now. The monster, though, he will not miss.

Gone are the horns and the tusks and the near-unbreachable hide. The unstoppable power, the indefensible force.

Gone is the death.

_His_ death. Kurse’s death. It's completely gone, as much gone as his borrowed face. His borrowed body.

He lets himself get sidetracked exploring his own face, shaking hands feeling the solid cheekbones, the burning cracked lips. The tongue, sticky with the dryness of a long sleep. He pokes a finger in his own eye by accident, wincing hard at the shock and pain, and marvels at the overflow of soothing tears.

He is alive!

Then, here it is again. The call, overfull of loss and longing. It carries with it the overwhelming compulsion to respond. He _must_ respond, he must... and so he gives responding his all: _I am here, my Master,_ he thinks, focusing as carefully as he can. _I am yours to command, my friend... my love._ It is the best he can do.

It is the best he can do because, of course, there _is_ a problem: He has no idea where _here_ might be. Assuming he still has his dark-vision (his vision, at all - eyes may exist and yet not see), it is pitch-black here. Black-dark and silent. He reaches down to touch the- the stuff, the matter(? He knows not what it is) beneath him. It is- well, it is here-but-not-here, there-but-not-there: Soft and yielding but without real texture, rather as though he is reclining weak and semi-supine on a divan of dense fog.

A dense, bland fog without taste or smell.

And then the force of Malekith's will washes over Algrim again, its whole tone changed.

It is so full of _relief_ \- of excitement, of desire - that he cannot help but cry. _I will come for you,_ it says, as the tears stream down his stinging face. _I will find you._

_And I will wait for you, however long it takes_ , Algrim thinks in response. He will. It is all that he wants.

~

After he has slept off the exhaustion of so much unaccustomed work, Algrim tries a bit of sorcery. It is the simplest of spells - a dim red witchlight no bigger than a pebble. Creating it is utterly draining, far harder even than moving. In the end, it feels as if it is stabbing straight into his eyes and he has to let it go out.

Still, it gives him hope.

He will practice. He will become stronger, and more skilled. He will earn back his position, and identify this place, and do what he can to be ready.

And when Malekith comes for him - which he knows with complete certainty his Commander, his Master, his _friend_ will do - they will go home.


	50. Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place the morning after Reward (both parts, for those who chose to read part II, but you don't really need the second part to get it).
> 
> Loki wakes up with his head up his ass; Heimdall goes for broke.
> 
> Brief references to sex...
> 
> _Sorry for the day off - yesterday I was finishing, cleaning up, and finally posting ~5k... well, it could be "all" or it could be "part I"... of an arranged marriage thorki AU. And then finding out a LOT of people like to read arranged marriage thorki AUs. Wow!_
> 
> _/flabbergasted_

He wakes a little disoriented, blinking in the dim light. The air he’s breathing is cold, almost painfully so, but his body is cozy and relaxed. Loki reaches a hand up to pull the bedding out of his face-

-and ends up with a handful of long, soft, shaggy fur.

_Oh. Right. Jotunheim._

He shifts carefully, getting his bearings. It must be morning. It’s been so long since he woke naturally after a decent night’s sleep, pleasantly sore in the strong arms of- well, of a lover, whatever they might tell themselves instead, that he’s not quite sure what to do.

In the end, he decides not to move the covers after all. He uses seidr to stir the cooling embers - to build a small fire – and then snuggles quietly against Heimdall. And waits.

And thinks.

That last bit, perhaps not surprisingly, ends up (yet again) being a serious tactical error.

This trip has not turned out the way he expected, even keeping in mind that he’s not entirely sure what happened during portions of the night. Whatever it was, Loki knows he managed to frighten Heimdall badly - the fact he was later able to get a very good and thorough fucking out of the whole arrangement in no way changes that – and may well (okay, seriously: will) have to cope with additional fallout once the Guardian awakens.

Including, unfortunately, strict orders – he’s not sure why exactly Heimdall feels it’s okay to _issue_ him orders; then again, he’s equally unsure why he jumps to obey when Heimdall does so – to get them both back to Asgard and then _stay there._

Loki can see Heimdall’s point, as far as it goes. He can. With the Guardian no longer at his post, Odin slumbering on, and Loki himself off-realm, there is after all no one left to open the Bifrost, emergency or no. And because Heimdall is not able to walk Yggdrasil’s slippery branches the way Loki can, the Guardian would indeed be trapped here on Jotunheim – with neither seidr nor Jotun form to protect him from the elements - should Loki die.

And, yes, he knows the myth of Ragnarok like the back of his own hand, knows that he and Heimdall are purported – are fated, some might say - to kill one another. But by freezing to death one after the other in Jotunheim because Loki lost his temper? That’s just too ridiculous.

Okay, it’s probably not _too_ ridiculous – it’s exactly the sort of stupid, ironic thing that would happen to him… to them… when they’d tried so hard to close every possible loophole and bridge every possible gap.

But still. It is beautiful here. Lovely. Relaxing. Loki wants to stay or, if staying is impossible, at least to know they will come back. Being here together is- it’s almost as if they are- are free. As if Odin might sleep forever – or they might somehow manage to escape his eye – leaving them able to go on and live their lives however they might see fit.

Then it hits him, the emotional _hurt_ of it akin to a devastating physical blow, knocking all the breath from his lungs: If they were free to live their lives however they might see fit, why - _why_ \- would Heimdall _see fit_ to spend his own remaining time with _Loki?_ The Guardian would have a choice again… a choice of where and how to spend the rest of his life, and a choice regarding with whom he would prefer to spend it.

And Heimdall could - _would, certainly_ \- choose to spend the rest of his life _not_ with Loki (crazy, clinging, unpredictable, difficult, troublesome, dangerous – all the awful things he is, after all). It’s not as if Loki’s is the only ass in the Nine available for fucking, after all. In fact, it’s probably not even as if his is the _best_ one.

No one _likes_ him, no one deals with him by willing choice; not unless it is strategically useful to align with him. Strategically useful in the way it would be when, say, one is imprisoned for treason.

Well, perhaps no one excepting Thor, but Thor has little choice in the matter either.

He rolls carefully onto his back in the deep nest of furs, holding his breath, moving slowly so as not to wake Heimdall; Loki is not ready to have this conversation for real, out loud, with another person. With the only other person he _has,_ in all the Nine. May never be ready, really. He settles himself and lets out a quiet juddering sigh… and then he can’t. He just can’t. He cannot feel this small again. Loki squeezes his eyes tight shut and tries to will himself out of existence, doing his best to ignore the hot tears trailing across his temples and down into his own hair.

~

Heimdall wakes silently. By virtue of his longstanding role as Asgard’s Guardian, he is adept at waking instantly and yet at giving no outward sign thereof until he’s sure his surroundings are safe. Eyes closed, he checks in with his remaining senses: warm pelts under and around him, smelling faintly of their original owners and rather more strongly (not to mention far more pleasantly) of sex and of Loki. Smoke – almost more a taste than a smell, really - from their sleeping fire. Under that, the crisp Jotunheim air… and the mineral spring, the pool.

The mineral spring and the fire, he can hear as well.

Much as he can hear the faint, wet sound of Loki- crying?

Heimdall cracks one eye open. Yes, Loki is crying. Not for show, either; not this time.

Hmm.

He weighs his options. If Loki wants his privacy and Heimdall unwittingly (or intentionally, even – to Loki it will likely make little difference) interferes, they may well have a repeat of last night on their hands… and he certainly doesn’t want that. But in the end he can’t just lie here and do nothing.

“Shh,” he soothes, so quietly his voice barely makes any sound at all. And then he reaches out – slowly, gently, careful not to startle – and cups a hand around the far side of Loki’s face. His fingers drag through the wet of tears. He scoots closer, just his head and shoulders. Kisses Loki very lightly on the wet, salty temple.

Says nothing further. Makes no move to pull the prince closer, even as Loki abandons all pretense of stealth and cries harder and harder. Maybe this is what Loki needs, after all; who is he to judge?

They lie like that a long time: Heimdall’s lips against the bony wetness of Loki’s face as the tears wash down; Loki himself making no move to cuddle close but also no move to flee.

And then for once it’s Loki who breaks the silence with the old, familiar question: “Why are you here?”

It’s a desperate move, one that could get him killed, but sometimes – even with Loki, who dwells nearly entirely in the endless shadowland of lies – the truth is a necessary and important thing. Heimdall swallows hard, prays quickly to the Norns that he has not read this situation badly wrong, and kisses Loki’s salty temple again more firmly.

“Because I love you.”


	51. Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows after Resemblance, from Jane's perspective, and after Forward chronologically.
> 
> Thor takes a day trip to Asgard and returns with quite a tale.
> 
> Certain other people come dangerously close to getting busted.

What to do, what to do? Should she tell him, or wait for him to guess? Jane groans quietly and rolls onto her back, then over to her other side, for the umpteenth time since she should have fallen sound asleep hours ago.

Thor is probably still snoring on the living room sofa (she’d peeked in on him there at least an hour earlier – only to find him with long limbs sprawled gracelessly over sofa back and arms and mouth hanging open - when she’d tiptoed carefully past in search of a calming cup of chamomile tea) looking for all the world like he hasn't a care.

But Jane knows: Looks can be deceiving.

~

_I just had the strangest experience,_ Thor had confided to her as she'd been cleaning up after dinner, he himself having just returned to her mother's flat via the now-familiar column of swirling, streaming light.

_When I summoned the Bifrost this afternoon, father did not send it. Concerned for his wellbeing - he carries quite a burden these sad days, after all, and that has been enough in times past to send him off to his long sleep unbidden - I took one of the few of Loki's back routes I dare to follow._

_When I arrived_ \- he had scowled then, as she'd gone to sit beside him on the sofa, and had fumbled for her hand with his big fingers - _naught seemed amiss. But my father was not in his throne room, nor his offices, nor his dining hall. I knocked at the door to his chambers, and poked my head in for a look about when I received no response, but all seemed to be in good order there as well._

_Certain there must be an ordinary explanation despite my own silly concern, I strolled - trying my best to appear at ease - about the palace halls… where I chanced to run across one of Odin's longest-standing manservants. "Young sire," he greeted me cheerfully, face flushed with what looked to be equal parts enthusiasm and concern, "we were not expecting you this day. I am afraid our king is off-realm presently, but we do anticipate seeing him back before the evening meal. You must stay," he instructed me before I could formulate a reply. "Your father would never forgive me if I let you leave without his having had a chance to see you."_

_Based on the oddly cold reception with which my last visit to Odin met, I was not nearly as certain of that as he... but what could I say?_

Jane had - well, she had probably nodded encouragingly. All she really remembers, truthfully, is the way cold dread had settled in her gut.

After staring out the window into darkness for two or three minutes, long, silent minutes during which Jane does clearly remember having desperately wanted to wring her hands or leap up and pace about - or both! - Thor had taken a deep breath and gone on.

_It was not long to dusk, and I did not wish to be caught creeping about the dungeons with the Allfather away. So I set my planned task aside for another time and went up to my balcony to await the Bifrost's glow as it heralded Odin’s return. There I waited._

_And waited._

_And waited._

Thor had paused there, almost as if he would not - could not? - go on. By then, Jane'd known her voice would betray her... she hadn’t dared to speak, but had just squeezed his fingers and patted his arm and hoped like crazy he'd take her silence for respectful concern and not for something concerning.

Thankfully - or not, she thinks now, depending on how she looks at it - he'd been so wrapped up in his odd tale that he’d paid little attention to her at all.

Finally, he’d continued unprompted. _Just as full dusk settled and it was nearly too dark to see, still without having witnessed the Bifrost’s activation, I heard my father's voice. I leapt up to get a better view and there he was, silhouetted against the observatory's entryway, Gungnir in hand, chatting casually with the Einherji_ \- here, he had remembered Jane again and had nicely stopped to explain that the Einherjar were (as she'd known already, but had politely pretended she hadn't) his father's royal guards - _who had clearly accompanied him._

_I could not make out the man's face, not then nor later. But I could hear them clearly, and could see their relaxed manner._

At that, Jane's stomach had lurched dangerously. The expression with which she'd met his own shocked look had been 100% genuine.

Then- well.

Then things had gone off the rails in a way she could never have predicted. Even thinking back on it now, anxious as she is about the entire situation, she can't help but laugh.

Thor had swallowed hard. Had twisted to better face her, taking her other hand in his.

Had opened his mouth several times as if to begin again, but had not managed to actually say anything.

Finally, he'd looked down at their clasped hands.

_My dearest Jane, I know I possess neither Loki's knife-sharp intellect nor Odin's deep wisdom. But I am an uncommon good judge of people, and I was - as you are fond of saying on Midgard – not born yesterday. And Jane?_

She clearly remembers this part - she'd been biting her lip, trying not to scream.

_Pardon my crassness, but I must borrow from Loki in order to explain this properly. The two of them, my father and his Einherji both, treated one another with what my brother always referred to as the casual familiarity of two people who are fucking and who do not give a rat's ass who in all the Nine knows it._

At that, the tattered remains of Jane's composure had failed her completely: She’d snorted, in the least ladylike manner imaginable, and had then dissolved into a fit of stress-fueled giggles.

_I know,_ he’d commiserated seriously, having missed the point - fortunately! - entirely. _It is beyond comprehension, is it not? Why would my father be carrying on relations with a guard? And why would he be sneaking off-realm to do so? But I know what I saw, and I- I could not be more certain._

Dinner had, from the sound of it, been a brief and rather strained affair. Odin'd explained his excursion - checking on the repatriated ice beast, he'd said - but had mentioned nothing about his traveling companion, and from what Thor'd described the king did not even realize he'd been spotted.

Not long thereafter - his tale wrapped up, his dinner supplemented with a few drinks and some leftover pizza - Thor had dozed off watching a movie.

And Jane had put herself to bed.

~

She sits up with an annoyed sigh and reaches for her room-temperature tea. Any doubt she might have harbored - and she's pretty sure she wasn't harboring much (any?) doubt to start with - is now gone.

She knows exactly where Loki is... Exactly. She could not be more certain. And how very, very like him it is to have found some way to make his situation, um, palatable.


	52. Confess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after the events recounted in Tale, but probably actually happens before/during Tale itself.
> 
> Loki has a little chat with Odin. Well, a little chat at Odin.
> 
> As usual, he angsts all over himself and wishes he'd made different choices.

He has backed himself into a fine corner this time.

In his long, long life one thing has been consistently true, consistently dependable: his own inconsistency. As much as it may sometimes appear otherwise, from the outside, Loki does not _do_ logical or orderly or rational. He is not predictable. He cannot be read like a book. He is utterly self-contained and self-absorbed: He does not do relationships, does not trust, does not accept or offer help.

He does not run kingdoms. He does not pore over tax documents. He does not host parties, soothe ruffled feathers or calm the offended. He does not pair off. He does not love, nor is he loveable. Well, except in regards to Frigga, which is different... and look how _that_ turned out. Above and beyond everything else, Loki absolutely cannot be counted upon to behave responsibly.

Except now he's made it so he _does, is,_ and _can_. And he can't even have a bit of fun with any of it, because he's gotten himself stuck doing nearly all of it in the body and persona of a crotchety old despot whose subjects somehow manage to perceive him as a good and fair king.

And now _Thor_ : Thor - no doubt thanks in part to his mortal, but Loki's known all along he would not be able to hide his not-Odin-ness from his brother... the longer this goes on, the more time Thor has to calm down and Odin has to _move past his grief and return to normal_ , the more likely it is Thor will figure the whole thing out - was here yet again today.

Here yet again, even, with some lame excuse - so obviously, laughably a lie that Loki-Odin all but called Thor on it then and there - about checking on his quarters.

Now, Loki has gone to Thor's quarters - is standing in them presently, truly, still in Odin's form in case yet another annoying citizen of Asgard manages to find him even here - and Thor is indeed being (very partially) truthful; he obviously was in here today. His taste and smell and _presence_ are everywhere, as if he’d only left recently. Which indeed he had.

But Heimdall heard Thor call for the Bifrost from Midgard hours ago, long before the two of them had left Jotunheim. They’d shared a laugh over it, even. And no inspection of one's bedchambers, no matter how thorough the inspection nor how idiotic the inspector, takes well past half a day. And on top of that the lingering residue of Thor's presence is most readily detectable on the balcony.

Which means he sat there for hours awaiting Loki-Odin's return.

And saw Loki-Odin and Heimdall, the latter disguised as a guard - a guard from the dungeons, one Thor may even know to be dead - chatting at the observatory. Though they looked the part, sure, they were hardly making any attempt to _act_ it... especially in the now-very-likely-seeming event they were under the close scrutiny of someone who actually knows them.

Stupid. Loki curses under his breath – they had been careless and lazy and stupid. And they had been caught out, no doubt.

Right now Thor, being endlessly Thor after all, is probably at war with himself... his brain hotly denying what his senses swear is true. It's a reprieve that cannot possibly last long, let alone forever; even Thor will have to admit the truth to himself eventually.

~

Loki makes his way to Odin's private chambers, dropping his disguise - as he always does - as soon as the doors are safely sealed. This time, though, he goes directly to the innermost room... the carefully seidr-hidden space where the king rests cozy in his golden _cradle_. Loki stalks up to the bedside, anger as yet winning out over fear, and clears his throat loudly.

"I'm sure this comes as absolutely no surprise, you judgmental old bastard, but I have fucked up royally this time," Loki growls at Odin's slumbering form. "I may as well confess now and have done; I know you can hear me, and this way you have the remainder of your glorified nap to decide how to best kill me," he goes on, volume steadily increasing; he’s half expecting the king to sit up and strangle him here and now. "You'll like that, won't you, deciding how to best obliterate your ill-stolen relic.” His yelling hurts his own ears, echoing in the quiet room.

Shouting at Odin when the king is powerless to respond (or even react, in any way) is actually far less satisfying than one would think it should be. In fact, it's an odd kind of humiliating. When Loki continues it's in his normal speaking voice, and with much of his initial bravado fallen away. "It seems - shocking, I'm sure - I don't make a very good Odin. Not that I wanted to be one, but I put myself on the throne - and sent Thor the Suspicious away - as you without thinking things through properly. Instead of just disappointing you, I can now disappoint _as_ you. Which turns out not to be any fun, sadly. I'm sure I've left you quite the mess to unravel."

"Oh, and you know how you left your naughty, traitorous Guardian – you remember, goes by Heimdall, the one who let Thor and his companions not only free me but also sneak away with that Aether-infected mortal - in solitary confinement? I keep letting him out. And feeding him. And speaking with him. Did I forget to mention I've been letting him fuck me? I'm sure that makes you terribly proud of me. And of him. He has come to care deeply for me, he says. I haven't admitted it - look, you're the first to know, _father_ \- but I feel much the same. So, there, you can wreck two lives at once. Won't that be nice? Oh, and I should probably point out that he even wants to fuck me as my real Jotnar monster self, because he's just as sick as I am."

Loki has to stop for a moment... hot tears stream down his cheeks, and his nails have drawn blood where he's dug them deep into both palms.

While he's clearing the air, he thinks, he would be remiss not to mention Sif and Volstagg... but maybe he'll keep that one last secret for another time. He's surely done more than enough damage for one day.

"Why did you let me fall, father," he asks at last, very quietly.

Odin doesn't stir, just lies there blank and silent as though nothing has changed.

Loki, for his part, has – once again - somehow managed to make himself feel worse instead of better. He laughs, hollow and humorless. "Then again, Allfather, you're well aware I lie more often than not. Perhaps nothing I've said today is true - I'm just a bitter, jealous ass and Thor sits happy on Asgard's throne after all. Sweet dreams, old man."

With that, he turns to go.


	53. Near

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place after Outreach, in the Algrim/Malekith story arc. It spans what to Algrim feels like nearly two years, though, and we don't really know how long it is in actual time (but it's probably at least close to that, if not more). Because of that, it probably actually ends beyond the current endpoint in Loki's arc.
> 
> Not that you care but, if you did... XD

In a place so absolutely, featurelessly dark - even when he manages to conjure a dim enough witchlight and train his poor, unused eyes to bear its glow there is absolutely nothing to see - Algrim is not able to reliably track the true passage of time. His mind and body need the structure of _days,_ though, so he (slowly, painstakingly, with big long breaks to sleep and heal) conjures himself a magical sand-timer and uses that to divide the relentless crawl of time into something his mind can work with. At long last satisfied with his small creation, he collapses into a long, dreamless sleep.

When he wakes on his own, he turns the timer and arbitrarily pronounces the moment _morning_. This is the start of his routine, of his rebuilding, and he performs it faithfully as he comes awake at the start of each new day. Once he is awake, the rhythm of his new life begins.

At first he is barely strong enough to conjure water; over time, sustained by rehydration, he is able to enrich his drinks with essential nutrients. The more he is able to take in, the more he is able to build; it is but thirty turns of the timer, thirty so-called days, later that Algrim creates his first solid food.

He allows himself only a few tiny morsels of the bland cake this first time; more will only sicken him, and he has not yet the strength to spare. It is a victory, though, and no small one. He allows himself the reward of extending his thoughts into the void, for the first time since he and Malekith made contact more than thirty turns ago.

_I am eating and drinking now, building my strength for you,_ he projects. Algrim has already prepared himself mentally to receive no reply – excitement over the conjuring of foodstuffs scarcely constitutes an emergency, and Malegrim doubtless faces battles of his own - and goes quickly on about the day's business. There is nothing to be gained by dwelling on what may never happen.

So, he is quite caught by surprise when - not more than a few grains of sand trickled through the timer’s narrow waist later - he feels a wave of happiness wash over his mind. _Of course you are,_ Algrim hears inside his head. _I never for a moment doubt you._

Heart pounding and tears streaking his face - perhaps he had not prepared himself quite so well as he had imagined - Algrim carefully thinks _Nor do I._ And it's true. He has never doubted Malekith in any way; in fact, he is not sure he could if he wanted to.

Which, of course, he does not. Truly he wants nothing less.

~

Now that he is once again able to eat, Algrim finds himself regaining his customary strength far more quickly. With each new turn of the timer his routine expands. He eats more than one meal. He begins to train his muscles, first using his own bodyweight and later conjuring dumbbells and balls with which to further speed his progress. With the witchlight bobbing just off his shoulder, he walks first slowly and then with greater speed; he never fails to count his strides, though, so he can turn about and be quite sure he will return to the place where he keeps his timer.

Not that he could not fashion himself a new timer if necessary - it's been ninety-four turns now and Algrim has moved easily on to far more complex things - but he simply cannot shake the sense that he is based in this specific location for a reason. Malekith found him here. To this exact place, this precise pinpoint in the great vastness of the void, he must return until the two of them are reunited.

~

On the day of the hundredth turn, Algrim makes himself a blue bowl. He knows it is blue because he is able to tolerate broader-spectrum light now, as long as he keeps the source sufficiently dim. He still spends most of his time in darkness, but certain tasks - the conjuring of beautiful, meaningful things, for example – do require a small bit of light. Even in the old days, the beloved days of darkness before the fall of their world and the concomitant rise of Asgard, things were not seamlessly velvety-black; recalling this Algrim feels no shame conjuring small, purpose-built lights from time to time.

Once the bowl is to his liking, he conjures 100 tiny white stones. He places each stone in the bowl with a whispered blessing. When all hundred lie within their new, blue home Algrim takes a moment to fix the sight firmly in his mind and then extinguishes his worklight. In the lovely dark, he reaches out carefully and touches the bowl, the stones. They will reliably link the past to the future, these stones, and for this alone he loves them.

With each turning of the timer he conjures a new stone and places it carefully with its companions, always with the same blessing. And then he sends his love out into the universe and goes on about his day.

~

On the day of the five-hundred-sixth turn - Algrim later pours all the stones into a temporary vessel and counts them carefully and exactingly back into their bowl; as he knows this is why he created the stones at all… for this, he must be certain - he sees the faintest shimmer in the far, far distance. He cannot at first believe it; he is sure his eyes are playing tricks. But hours of careful experimentation and study later even he must admit the thing – the distant shimmer, still as faint and small as it was at the day’s turn - he sees is real.

He sends out a carefully-neutral thought, in case what he sees is unexpected; hostile.

After considerably less time than that to which he has become accustomed, he senses a reply. _You can see me now. I feel it in you, even though you wisely did not indicate as much. I am finally near, beloved._

Algrim leaps to his feet. _Yes, my king,_ for the presence in his mind is unmistakably Malekith, through and through, and Algrim is ecstatic. _I can indeed just see you on the far horizon. You have done it, as I knew you would._

_And you have waited dutifully, as I knew you would,_ Malekith replies. _I am yet some ways off, but I now have visual confirmation of my target. Of you. We will soon be reunited. And are you well? You seem well, in your thoughts._

Just now, Algrim thinks he has never been better. He cannot put that into words, though; instead, he just happily projects _I am, sir, I am. And you?_

_I am well enough, yes. But I will be far better once we are reunited and I can see, hear, and touch you again._

Algrim feels exactly the same way, but he knows better than to beg or demand. He is not the one in charge here; has never been, does not wish to be. What he does, he does out of service. _I am most glad to hear that, sir. I look truly forward to seeing you soon._ He sends as much warmth out into the void as he can, and then goes back to his routine. He has no sense of how far away the horizon might be, so he intends to go on about his regular business until something changes.

Today he eats his meals and puts his pebble in the bowl. He lifts his weights and walks his rounds. He sends his love into the universe, and then curls up on the soft nothing and goes to sleep.

Or he tries, at least. He has the hardest time sleeping tonight he has ever had (at least outside his kursed time… and that does not count. When Algrim was kursed, he did not sleep, but he also did not need to; consequently sleeplessness had felt right and normal and in every way different than it feels just now). He desperately wants to know: How near is near? How long is soon?

At some point he does manage to drift off. He knows this because he wakes, and one must wake _from_ something. His ritual now has a new step; he turns the timer and then looks to the far horizon, heart pounding. And, thank everything in the universe, there it is – the beautiful, perfect shimmer, bigger and nearer than it was the turn before. Algrim smiles, conjures his stone, sets it lovingly in the bowl, and goes on about his day.


	54. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place after Heimdall and Loki visit Jotunheim.
> 
> In which Loki doubts and Heimdall doesn't.

"What will you do?"

Heimdall knows Loki is studying his face, just about ready to burst, but he refuses to be rushed into a decision. It's a huge, huge question and it deserves more than a flippant answer. _Loki_ deserves more than a flippant answer.

~

They have come back from Jotunheim - much as they didn't want to leave the cave, with its lovely hot spring, Loki was absolutely right to say they couldn't stay any longer. Every time they do something like this, every day - every hour, even - they stay away raises the risk of getting caught... of something becoming sufficiently concerning as to wake Odin from his protracted slumber. It could be an emergency of state, it could be a nosy jail guard suspicious of Heimdall's weakly-explained disappearance. It could just be that weird extra sense the old god possesses; the sense that warns when something is _very wrong,_ the one that woke the Allfather when _Loki fell._

Loki. Heimdall. They both know Odin will wake someday. There is nothing - perhaps save the loss of Frigga; he has less for which to return now, certainly, but the old man is damned stubborn and it will take more than that to bring him down - to indicate this is the great king's _longest rest._ And when he does wake, life will change greatly.

Really, though, life already _has_ changed greatly. Instead of standing watch, Heimdall alternates sneaking around with passing the long hours in that tiny cell. Instead of serving the realm, he is its prisoner.

Instead of keeping an eye on Loki, with the intention of protecting Asgard and keeping the realm safe... well, he's _fucking_ Loki. And keeping an eye on him, of course, but with the rather different intention of keeping _Loki_ safe.

There really is no question, after all. Heimdall can't go back to his old life, whether or not he wants to. And if he's honest with himself - which he does try hard to be, even now - he _doesn't_ want to. As bad as an idea as it doubtless may be, he wants more than anything to stay with Loki.

He meant what he said, in Jotunheim; somehow, despite his own better judgment, Heimdall has managed to fall deeply in love with Loki. If Loki becomes a threat to Asgard, and Heimdall is forced to choose... well, it won't be like the old days.

~

_He is watching Jotunheim closely, not because he can see the future - he can't; gifted as he is, he can only see the present and remember the past - but because this is a monumental battle. Asgard is winning, just barely; if it weren't for dumb luck - two Einherjar stumbling upon the Casket of Ancient Winters while running from an angry Jotnar soldier in full ice - they would be losing. More than just losing, really; they would all be dead._

_So Heimdall's attention is fixed on the frozen realm. On the collapsing palace, on the wrecked citadel. On, as a consequence, the squalling blue runt baby. He makes note of it only because Odin does. Watches impassive as Odin takes the small blue thing in hand and cuddles it close. As the baby pinks up, Heimdall shudders: Though he is not superstitious by nature, he can't shake the feeling something has walked across his grave._

_As a toddler Loki isn't terribly threatening; not to anyone but himself, at least. The child clearly adores Thor, his de facto big brother. They are inseparable; watching one is watching the other. It is by comparison a deceptively easy time for Heimdall, though at that point he lacks sufficient perspective to see it thus. It is a time free of conflict and tough decisions._

_That and, in truth, Frigga is doing all the hard work for him. She loves both boys as her own, and rushes to Loki's rescue every time things go wrong. Which they often do, and seemingly always will... but it's not yet Loki's fault at this tender stage._

_When things finally start getting ugly - when Loki turns growing frustration inward, then outward, then inward again and begins hiding from Heimdall at every opportunity - it's increasingly chilling but still easy. There are more and more walking-on-my-grave moments, make no mistake, but Heimdall's loyalty is ever clear; when he must choose between Loki and Asgard, he chooses Asgard without hesitation. He can see no reason to do otherwise._

_Loki's fall might have tested him, finally, but for Odin. The Allfather wakes from his unexpected slumber in time to save both his son and his changeling... but doesn't. Odin allows Loki to fall. Something in Heimdall twists painfully, watching Odin's lesser son vanish into the void, but his mission is to keep watch and not to intervene. So, watch he does._

_Something - something he wishes he could shake himself free of, really - keeps him watching Loki long after the initial threat to Asgard is gone. Heimdall watches as the Chitauri - working under Thanos' orders - strip Loki consecutively of his pride, his sanity, and finally his skin. He watches Loki scream and plead and cry, watches the fallen prince bleed, watches the welts ripped into his pale back and the burning alien spend trailing down his trembling thighs. He watches as everything good Loki once was - and there was good, if you looked... which of course Heimdall did - is stripped away. Watches as Loki implodes, coming out the other side thin and sick and crazy and dangerous._

_He watches Loki's ridiculous antics on Midgard; the chaos in Stuttgart, the attack on New York. Heimdall recognizes it all as the cry for help it is, but even now it is not his place to answer. He has one duty and it's clearly circumscribed; he protects Asgard. Loki is not Asgard. The whole situation sickens him, but it's a weakness he can't afford to indulge. Loki's sins may be partly Odin's, but his bad choices are his own. Heimdall cannot help him there._

_Should he have tried? Odin would say no, and Odin is Heimdall's master._

~

Odin _was_ Heimdall's master. Now life has changed greatly, and Heimdall is his own master. Loki, who once wavered precariously between an astounding threat and collateral damage, is now the most important thing is Heimdall's universe. Heimdall lives for Loki; he would - he will - die for Loki.

His loyalty, he realizes, is no more divided than it ever was. It's just... different. Where once he was bound by honor to the Allfather, he is now bound by love to the prodigal son.

It may be a huge decision but, in the end, it's an easy one after all.

Heimdall turns to face Loki, who is visibly taking huddled refuge somewhere deep inside himself. "Do you want my answer first, so you can tell yourself it was given free of coercion, or do you want first to tell me what _you_ intend?"

Loki shrugs. "You should go first." His expression is so blank, so shuttered, that Heimdall doesn't even feel the least stab of fear... this isn't trickster Loki sneakily warning him that the next truth is one he'll desperately wish to unhear; this is frantic, lost Loki reaching for a spar in the ocean.

Frantic, lost Loki reaching for Gungnir over the void.

Heimdall gently cups Loki's face, running a thumb over the quivering bottom lip. The gesture is familiar, in reverse; the sentiment, though, is entirely different. "I cannot go back to the service of Asgard," he tells Loki softly. "I am yours now. My loyalty would ever be compromised." He watches the pale face in his hand closely.

Loki looks down and away. "You might yet save yourself, you know. I could have abused my power, swayed your hand. After sufficient penance the Allfather might see the way to have you serve again."

"Look at me." Heimdall hooks Loki's chin and gives an careful little tug. "I am not playing games with you. Do me the courtesy of looking me in the eye." His words are harsh, but his tone and touch are mild. He does not want a fight, though if it must come to that it must.

At long last Loki looks up, eyes very green against his pale skin and dark lashes. "Thank you," Heimdall acknowledges, because Loki has just managed something very difficult. "I do not want to _save myself,_ as you put it. The past is the past; I did what I had to do as _Odin's tool,_ and I do not regret my long service. _BUT_ ," he stresses firmly as Loki's expression hardens, "the past is not the present, nor is it the future. I am with you now. I have made my choice; I will gladly accept its consequences, whatever they may be."

Loki's eyes narrow. "So you mean you will die for me." He doesn't phrase it as a question, but Heimdall _sees_ it for what it truly is anyway.

"If that is how it all must end, yes. I will die for you." He slips his hand carefully around the back of Loki's neck. "I would much rather _live_ with you a long time prior but, if it is ultimately the dying which comes the sooner, so be it." He leans in for a kiss; just a brief one, making sure he pulls away before Loki can fight to escape. "I know you are beyond my reach but, as far as my part in this goes, I will not take sides against you again. You have my word."

With that he releases Loki and sits back, waiting.

Waiting, waiting - watching the blue baby, the troubled young adult, the broken, tortured god stare a veritable hole in the floor, chewing his lip all the while.

After a bit Heimdall just can't stand it anymore. "And you," he asks, carefully forcing down the urge to touch Loki again, "what will _you_ do?" It won't change his own answer, but he knows Loki needs to tell him... and yet won't manage to do so unless firmly nudged.

"I am dangerous," Loki says at last, voice small. "I destroy. I am not good at building."

"This I know." Heimdall surely does. "Go on."

"You know, and yet you claim to want me still." This? This is Loki the heartbroken child, fearing every gift a trap.

"I know, yes, and I want you still. There is no _claiming._ Believe it or not, the choice is yours, but I know my own heart." Heimdall _does_ touch Loki now, fingers tracing the delicate skin inside one wrist. Throwing Jotunheim in Loki's face is tempting.

He doesn't. Instead, once again, he waits.

About the time his patience starts to really wear thin, Heimdall is both surprised and incredibly pleased to find himself with a lapful of warm, snuggly Loki. Loki, who burrows his face deep into the angle between Heimdall's neck and shoulder.

"I love you too, you know," Loki tells the thin skin over Heimdall's collarbone, lips tickling like the feathers of his adoptive father's ravens. Of his own magpies. Heimdall shivers, as much from the words as the touch.

_I do now_ , he thinks, tears springing to his eyes. It seems he hadn't dared to hope after all. He noses Loki's face away from his own neck and kisses the prince, hard this time. Not pulling away, this time. Instead Heimdall gathers Loki close and kisses him within an inch of his life.

If they're going to die for this, it may as well be together.

Very, very close together, Loki’s hands warm against his back.

_One,_ Heimdall thinks, as Loki's nails draw blood. _One._


End file.
